A new site for our flagship project

We are really excited to be announcing we’ve secured a new site for our flagship project in the Majura Valley. Nestled between the old Majura Rd and the new Majura bypass the site will be on the Majura valley tourism trail and be a part of an area which really demonstrates the bush capital vision of Canberra. The area combines local agriculture and produce with nearby institutions like the Winery and Truffle farm and can now boast to being a focal point for local communities transitioning to a renewable future through innovation in sustainability. We’ve had some great support from the local stakeholder groups to the Majura area and are pleased to announce that this site will be the focus of our application to the ACT Government’s community Solar Scheme in April 2015. We are still interested in feedback and keen to hear from anyone that would like to comment. Please send any feedback to feedback@solarshare.com.au Head to our flagship project page to see all the details on the new location or read on below to learn more about the changes.

Changing developers

Each solar developer manages and works on specific sites in its portfolio, as we are on a different site we are also needing to change the developer we are working with as the rights to this project are held by Solar Fields. This consequently means we cannot work with our previous developer, Photon Energy on this project. We will however continue to work with Photon Energy for some of our rooftop projects, we think they are a great company and are a pleasure to work with.

Why the change?

In late 2014 we conducted numerous consultations with stakeholders  around our inital site down in Mugga.  We presented to to the Inner South, Tuggeranong and Woden community councils, the Conservation Council and some of its member groups as well. We had great question and answer sessions with some of the council members and general public at these meetings and we received a very pleasant welcome from all of them. We also had some feedback from the ACT government on our proposal, some of it was good, and other parts meant we have a little more work to do. However through this consultation we became aware of some issues with the Mugga site that have meant we have had to do a re-think of our proposal. With the expert help of conservation council members we learned that some of the trees on the Mugga site are quite special Yellowbox and Applebox gum, these are quite mature trees and can provide good habitat for nesting parrots. You can read about the details of the Mugga site here

It can be a difficult path to walk between protecting our environment through preserving natural habitat and seeking to protect it through increasing renewable energy.

Its been a good experience for us to work through this issue at SolarShare and I think it’s a really important question for our community in general. Ultimately though we decided that our environment and the community come first which meant that the decision wasn’t very hard to make. Working in significant changes to our proposal like these means a stronger project in the end but can extend the time frames. We will naturally keep updates flowing here and on the mailing list. You can see the project details for the new site in the Majura Valley on our flagship project page