Consents granted for three solar farms in Canterbury

Thursday, 18 January 2024

Developers are racing to build solar farms before the market for the off-peak energy they mostly produce becomes saturated.

Solar power pioneer Lodestone Energy is consolidating its early lead in the race to supply solar energy, after securing resource consents for three solar farms in the South Island.

The company, whose early investors include The Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall, Xero founder Rod Drury and Trade Me founder Sam Morgan, said the sites at Clandeboye, Mount Somers and Dunsandel in Canterbury would together be able to produce about 150 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year.

That equated to about $50 million of electricity a year at current average retail prices, or about 0.4% of the country’s total electricity demand.

Lodestone currently operates the country’s largest grid-connected solar farm, a 61,000 panel power plant in Kaitaia, and has a further four farms in various stages of construction or pre-construction near Edgecumbe, Waiotahe, Whitianga and Dargaville.

Managing director Gary Holden said expanding into the South Island was a key part of its strategy to sell power to customers across the country, and it expected to announce more developments later this year.

“Getting enough volume and coming online with pace is a critical part of satisfying consumer demand.”

Lodestone’s goal was to ensure its solar farms were welcomed by local councils and neighbours, he said.

“Those willing to invite these farms into their future planning will play a key role in the energy transition to an electricity market with 100% renewable energy.”

Genesis' promotional video for its Lauriston solar farm.

Solar power is relatively cheap to produce, at least compared to gas and coal generation.

The country’s entire electricity demand of about 44 terawatt-hours a year could in theory be met by a solar farm occupying about 50,000ha, or less than 0.2% of the country’s land mass.

However, there is only a limited amount of solar power that the electricity market can absorb without a form of power storage, given that solar farms produce most power at off-peak times during the day when the sun is strongest and electricity is cheap.

That has led to a race to build the plants that can prove commercially viable.

Helios Energy, a venture backed by Google vice president Urs Holzle, has announced plans for several large solar farms and existing generators have started to get in on the act.

Genesis Energy expected to produce 80 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year from a solar farm it was planning on a 90 hectare site in Lauriston in Canterbury.

Contact Energy announced last year that it was planning what could be one of “the country’s largest solar farms” capable of generating 290GWh of power a year on a 300 hectare site adjacent to Christchurch Airport.