Community Solar For South Hobart Tip?

A City of Hobart Councillor wants to see a solar farm established at the local tip site, for the benefit of Council and renters.

The McRobies tip site in South Hobart is due to be fully closed in 2030, although it will still be used as a waste transfer site after that time. Sections of the tip are already being shut down, with rehabilitation work following. While the City of Hobart is preparing for life without its own landfill, there are various ideas floating around as to what should be done with parts of the site.

Greens Councillor Bill Harvey, if re-elected, will be tabling a proposal for a 2MW solar farm at the site – a project that could benefit some of the many Hobart residents unable to directly benefit from solar power.

“Renters are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to solar panels to offset their electricity bills, if their rental property doesn’t have solar panels,” he says.

Cr. Harvey envisions the project would be a community co-op model in partnership with the City of Hobart, which could be a major purchaser of energy generated by the proposed facility.

” The cost of living is really biting into peoples lives and we have to find solution. Being part of a solar energy co-op is one such opportunity.”

How Much Energy Could The Solar Farm Produce?

Generation figures weren’t mentioned, but a 2MW solar farm in that location using a fixed ground-mount system could be expected to produce around 2,435,860 kilowatt-hours of clean electricity a year; more if trackers were used.

City Of Hobart No Stranger To Harnessing Solar Energy

If the project went ahead as envisioned, it wouldn’t be the first time City of Hobart has dabbled in solar power. The organisation has a bunch of systems already in place on its assets, including at City Hall (31kW), Town Hall (25kW) and the Doone Kennedy Hobart Aquatic Centre (400kW). If you go to this page and scroll down a bit, you’ll see links to each system’s SMA Sunny Portal monitoring dashboard that shows the energy the arrays are generating in real-time along with historical performance figures.

Through these systems and energy-efficiency improvements to its operations and buildings, the City now saves over $1 million a year in electricity costs alone.

Home Solar Power In Tasmania

As well as Council, residents and businesses are switching on to solar savings – and there are quite a few good solar installers in Hobart to help them.

More broadly across Tasmania and despite challenges including experiencing the least sunshine and lowest solar output of any state, a lower rebate and higher system costs,  rooftop solar power done right can still be an excellent investment for Tasmanians households and businesses. More than 46,000 small scale PV systems (<100kW capacity) have been installed across the Apple Isle to date.

Learn more about going solar in Tasmania.

Trivia: Australia’s first operational reclaimed landfill solar farm was a 1.1MW (AC) project at Albury Waste Management Centre. It commenced operations in 2019.