HAMILTON will see its first major solar power farm soon with plans for a facility on a 75-hectare property about seven kilometres south-west of the town.

The project is still under some approval processes with Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DEWLP) and also finalising a connection agreement with Powercor before beginning construction, but the company behind it expected to start before the end of the year.

Tetris Energy director, Frank Boland said the development will only use about a fifth of the property which makes it a relatively modestly-sized solar station, as there were limitations with how much power they could feed into the local infrastructure, but it was still worth setting up.

“In the scheme of renewable energy projects, it’s a small project,” he said.

“We’ve done quite a few of these before.”

However, this one has an additional feature which has only recently become part of their typical design.

“With this project we’ve got a battery proposed as well,” Mr Boland said.

“It’s something that we’ve started doing on our most recent projects.

“So there’s solar alongside … feeding to the battery (and) it will feed into the grid.

“It can either be charged from the solar or from the grid.”

Mr Boland said that the battery would make the installation more adaptable in terms of how it contributed to the power needs in the area “rather than only being able to supply in the daytime, having the flexibility to service some of those evening and morning peaks - which matches the demand better”.

He also detailed how the farm would integrate into the local electricity network.

“You’re talking about the flow of the electrons,” Mr Boland said.

“They’ll be produced at the solar farm and then they can flow into the grid or flow into the battery.

“So that’s the Hamilton to Iluka (Mineral Separation Plant) feeder.

“Then it goes back down Port Fairy Road towards Macarthur – the electrons will first be used within loads within that system and any electrons that aren’t used … will flow back to the Hamilton zone substation next to the saleyards and then it can go on to any of the other feeders that service Hamilton.

“It can then also go through the transformers there and then go on to the higher voltage distribution transmission feeders and then service a broader region.”

The panels themselves will be tracking the sun, with each 80-metre row being connected to a single axis – “at the end of that row, there’s a small motor that drives the tracker and rotates it every day from east to west”.

Every 15-minute adjustment is only slight but tracking opens the option for the panels to have their exposure to adverse weather events reduced.

Although the panels are designed for “taking a bit of a pounding”, Mr Boland said “you get something big enough they can break”, so if the company detected bad weather significant enough heading to the location, they are able to remotely angle the panels to mitigate the risk of damage.

Tilting the panels is also required when maintenance vehicles need to drive between rows.

Another feature of the panels is that they are bifacial, which gives them about 15 per cent more output from the reflection off the ground than if the solar receptors were only on one side.

Glint and glare off the panels affecting aircraft was also a potential obstacle to overcome but with the project’s small size, the tracking into the sun and the fact the airport is on the other side of town, Mr Boland said this was highly unlikely to have ever been a problem.

“It’s very rarely an issue,” he said.

“Darwin Airport have it alongside their runway … (and at Melbourne Airport) the bottom of their runway on the north side, (they’ve) got their own solar array.”

Noise was a consideration (low), so was the visual impact (it will be screened with vegetation) but with no homes nearby, these were also considered negligible.

The installation will include a 300,000 litre water tank, and the relevant section of the Monivae Subdivision Road will get an all-weather road upgrade too.

Sheep will continue to graze amongst the panels which assists in keeping the grass down – “it’s mutually beneficial” - but Mr Boland said over time solar project engineers have had to adapt their designs to make allowance for the animals.

“The original ones – there were some issues with the sheep rubbing up against the emergency stop buttons on the trackers,” he said.

“Cable junction boxes are now designed to take them into account.”

The project has a design life of 30-35 years and at the end of this, it will either be retrofitted with a newer system or decommissioned.

Mr Boland said the company was expecting to advertise to employ locals if the project gets approved and will take about four months to build, and there will maintenance opportunities too.

“It works well to get the local crews that know the area,” he said.

“What we do at other projects is … there’ll be periodic maintenance and that can be undertaken by local contractors, electricians …  whatever is required.”