A commitment by Oxley Solar Farm – a 225MW solar farm proposed east of Armidale – to make a community benefit contribution of $5.9 million over the next 20 years was met by unanimous agreement by Armidale councillors.
Armidale Mayor, Sam Coupland, said he expected that this would be the first of many such deals over the coming years as part of the New South Wales Government’s New England Renewable Energy Zone (REZ).
“Our REZ will offset almost eleven per cent of Australia’s current CO2 emissions and is the equivalent of planting around 500 million trees or removing 12.5 million cars from our roads,” said Cr Coupland
“Our community expects that our contribution to the national emissions task is recognised and the impacts of individual projects minimised.”
One of the first orders of business of Cr Coupland when he was elected in January this year was to draw a line in the sand with the New South Wales Government on its proposed New England Renewable Energy Zone.
Cr Coupland presented a statement of expectations to the State Government in March which outlined a number of requirements that renewable energy developers would be expected to meet if they proposed to construct wind or solar farms in the region.
In the past, wind and solar farms have contributed little in employment (outside construction phases) and almost nothing in community benefit contributions. However, Council is now very clear that developers can expect little support if they are not engaging meaningfully with locals, minimising the impact of their project and making appropriate financial contributions to the community.
Oxley Solar Farm met one of those expectations by agreeing to make a community benefit contribution of $5.9 million over the next 20 years with approximately $2.79 million due on commencement of construction and the remaining amount payable over 20 years. It has also significantly scaled down the original footprint of the solar farm in response to local submissions and in an attempt to minimise its impact.
Oxley Solar Farm still needs to address a number of issues raised in public submissions in order to obtain the necessary State Government approvals and Mr Coupland pointed out that the community benefit deal doesn’t guarantee the Oxley Solar Farm will receive State Government planning approval.
“There is still a substantial part of the State Government assessment process to undergo on this project and I would encourage our community to continue to actively participate in that process,” Cr Coupland said.
“Council intends to review thoroughly how Oxley has responded to concerns raised by the local community and will provide feedback on that to the NSW Government.”
