Regional property owners turning unusable land into money through solar

May 30, 2024 12:04 PM

Regional property owners turning unusable land into money through solar energy leases. With upheavals in the agriculture industry making some farms unviable, a landowner in South Australia is encouraging others to consider repurposing their properties for renewable energy projects.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (4 comments total)

I wonder how that’s going to work? We’ve already been told that the power company will be charging us if we generate “excess” from our rooftop solar so they seem to lack capacity to handle the existing peak production.
posted by thixotemperate at 1:30 PM on May 30

Agrivoltaics: Some agriculture or wild plants can share land with solar, if you mount the solar high enough above the ground, and let through some light. It's not as nice as trees of course, but solar can both let through some light and also provide a more humid enviroment, which benefits some plants.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:17 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]

thixotemperate, the solution to getting off coal-fired power stations is solar panels + very large storage batteries owned by the power companies.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:50 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]

they seem to lack capacity to handle the existing peak production.

Australia produces the most bauxite in the world, but not in aluminum processing, which requires a lot of electricity. As you might imagine, this usually moves to places with surplus power, which is how you find Iceland with its geothermal power on the top 10 exporters list. So that's one way to deal with the surplus energy, off the top of my head.

(I'm honestly surprised China is so high up there vs the next highest producer. I guess they have a ton of power plants and no incentives to stop building more?)
posted by pwnguin at 9:21 AM on May 31