Mullins said the project was “quite innovative”.
“It had to deliver significant community value.”
Those working on the proposal had been working with council staff to understand what the proposed solar farm would look like and had been able to identify some under-utilised land beside the Dannevirke transfer station.
Mullins said the land was considered suitable because there wouldn’t be a need for a land use change application and it was close to a major user of power.
“By having an infrastructure there, we see that we would be able to meet approximately 57% of their energy demand.”
She explained the way the farm would work, saying that the energy created by the solar farm would be captured and would be there for usage at a competitive rate for a high-energy user - which would be the council with the sewerage ponds.
“The first benefit would be that we would be able to offer a very competitive rate for electricity for the waste plants.
“The second one is there’d be no capital or maintenance input required by council.”
Mullins said the operational costs once the project was commissioned were “pretty low” and would be recouped through the sale of energy.
The trust was requesting use of the site for a solar farm, subject to Geotech tests and engineering.
A further presentation was made on a waste to compost plant.
Te Tahua o Rangitāne general manager Shaun Lines said they had identified an opportunity to apply for a grant that would divert green and food waste from landfill.
However, they found there were no commercial quantities of food waste in the region, but the biggest problem that most small councils in New Zealand had was sewage sludge.
“We started looking at systems that would allow us to divert green, food, sewage sludge and other biosolids and look to either move it to energy or compost,” Lines said.
“As a small region, and even incorporating the surrounding regions, we don’t have enough to make the energy one work.”
They had found a system that would allow the waste to be turned into compost, he said.
There had been discussions with council staff on how they could put together a project that would allow Rangitāne and the council to work together and deal with waste locally and neighbouring councils had also expressed an interest.
“Because this is not an issue that one council’s got alone, which would then potentially offer us an opportunity to become a centre of excellence and waste management.”
An ideal site had been identified by the wastewater ponds which would allow green waste and other waste to come through the transfer station, be weighed and processed.
After about 10 weeks, it would turn into compost which they could then look into distributing to the community.
“We sort of see there’s a huge opportunity here for us to do right by the planet, right by our communities, right by our families and do it in a way that we’ll actually save money, which is kind of good for all of us because we are all ratepayers,” Lines said.
The council was asked for a letter of intent to explore both projects with Rangitāne, who could then take that back to the government agencies they were reporting to.
A report was to be written to be tabled for the next council meeting.
