A grazier’s message on discovering a boost in productivity with solar panels on land

ABC NEWS (Australia)

For a long time, there's been friction about solar farms taking over agricultural land. But a soon- to- be- released guide shows how the two can co-exist. Landline's Pip Courtney caught up with one farmer who says it not only works but actually makes the land more productive.

Transcript

00:00On the outskirts of Dubbo,

00:14grazier Tom Warren runs two operations.

00:17He grows wool and harvests the sun.

00:21His merinos share 54 hectares

00:24with 64,500 solar panels

00:27owned by French solar company Nguyen.

00:30The panels generate up to 20 megawatts a day.

00:35The stocking rates and the quality and revenue from the wool

00:38being greater than it was for the associated land

00:42beside the farm did surprise me.

00:46Tom says the 30-year lease contract

00:48was too lucrative to knock back.

00:50The revenue coming from the lease

00:53is far greater than the revenue

00:56that would come from agricultural purposes on its own.

01:00So it's not a peppercorn rent?

01:02It is not a peppercorn rent.

01:03The biggest issue there is it's drought-proofed.

01:06It's every year, regardless of the weather,

01:08the sunshine, wool prices, land prices, everything else,

01:12there's a baseline for our family

01:15that we don't have to worry about.

01:17His best hope was not to lose production.

01:21Extraordinarily, he's increased the stocking rate by 25%.

01:26He puts it down to the microclimate the panels create.

01:31Runoff from the panels concentrates the water.

01:34It actually has a row of green grass growing all the time,

01:39even in summer,

01:40and it happened also right through the drought.

01:45That was a surprise.

01:47Another was how often his sheep wanted to be under the panels.

01:53They head into the shade even in the middle of winter.

01:56It's had a bit of a wake-up call for wool producers

01:59or people running sheep for fat land production

02:01that maybe they didn't realise how much shade their sheep need.

02:05I think that is a message that should get out there.

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