Renewable Newstead: Solar Farm Construction Commences

It’s taken a while to clear all the hurdles, but the town of Newstead in Central Victoria is closing in on its renewable energy goals.

Situated in the Shire of Mount Alexander and around 1.5 hours north-west of Melbourne, Newstead is already a solar powerhouse in terms of rooftop solar panel uptake. In 2019, we noted 228 small scale solar power systems had been installed in Newstead’s postcode area. By the end of August this year, the tally had grown to more than 300 and a total capacity of 1,160kW. The population of the 3462 postcode area is around 1,230 (Census 2021), so that’s pretty good going!

But the good folks of Newstead want to take things one (big) step further; setting a goal to supply the town with equivalent of 100 per cent renewable energy for its electricity requirements – and with it all to be locally generated. As part of this, the Renewable Newstead project was formed to work on getting a small utility-scale solar farm established 3 kilometres west of the township.

This ambition has been in the pipeline for quite some time and has had significant Victorian Government support. Back in 2015, the State Government kicked in $200,000 for the development of a sustainable long-term model for a small town to generate its own electricity using renewables. Then in 2019, $1.1 million was awarded to Renewable Newstead’s solar farm project.

In 2020, an application for a planning permit was lodged with the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP). Since that time, the project has met with a number of challenges, including the impacts of COVID-19, tussling with red tape and supply chain issues. While the original application was for a 10MW farm, it was subsequently amended to 3MW (AC?), with a 5 MWh battery system.

PV Persistence Pays

The persistence of the Renewable Newstead team has paid off and construction has finally commenced. While there have no doubt been many frustrations to this point, their experience will be useful to other communities looking to do something similar.

The clean power facility is expected to be completed by July next year. A retail electricity offer will be made available for Newstead residents through Flow Power, which will reinvest a portion of profits back into the community for further renewable energy projects.

“Newstead is leading the way – driving down their energy bills by up to 30 per cent and helping Victoria hit our target to reduce emissions by 50 per cent by 2030,” said Victorian Minister for Energy Lily D’Ambrosio.

Minister D’Ambrosio attended an event marking the start of construction of the facility yesterday, where she also announced the Andrews Government has committed a further $1.15 million to renewable energy and energy efficiency projects via the New Energy Jobs Fund (NEJF); bringing total NEJF funding to $20 million.

The latest round, which closed in August, will support 15 new projects – but at the time of writing further details regarding these projects weren’t available.