Dinawan Solar Farm

As a local landholder we feel this project will cause negative change to our district which is outlined below. There is no guarantee that we will receive any positives from such a project, with the local council planning to spend any benefit sharing away from the directly affected community.

There will be large amounts of traffic on our roads during construction. Council is already unable to maintain many dirt roads to the previously expected level due to an inability to employ grader drivers and this leaves the question of who will upgrade roadways before construction and maintain them post construction.

The biggest impact I believe is the disruption to landscape and biodiversity. We work with the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to conserve native flora and fauna. All examples of solar farms I have seen are barren landscapes with no native species provided an opportunity to grow. This will undo many years of work on neighboring properties to provide native species an opportunity to thrive in our landscape. There will be a Kangaroo proof fence erected pushing these species onto neighbors and zero compensation for this impact.

I object to the whole renewable energy saga. Wind turbines and solar panels contain steel which is made from coal – what’s renewable about that? What happens to them after their useful life – are they dumped in landfill? They are a blight on the landscape and taking valuable agricultural land which should be used for growing food. Our agricultural exports are worth about $80bn annually. Quoting from a recent article in the Australian "Each year, on average, each Australian farmer feeds 150 of their fellow countrymen and 450 of their allies overseas." I've no doubt the $80bn of exports contributes to supporting the NDIS, schools, hospitals, etc. Australia's agricultural industries are world leading - we must not jeopardize this.

I object to these renewable projects. There are so many toxic materials in batteries, often mined in poor countries by little children. Toxic materials are also found in wind turbines and solar panels which is so bad for the environment. I have seen reports of wind turbines and solar panels being dumped in landfill when they are past their use by date which is incredibly harmful to the environment and will leave that land useless for many years to come. No, No, No - stop it now!

We are a neighbouring property and we feel this project will disturb native grassland and fauna

This solar farm is to be erected on native pastures with many significant species of both flora and fauna. We are a neighbouring property and have Biodiversity Conservation Trust Agreements, with some areas directly over the road. We also have a Plains Wanderer Biodiversity Conservation Agreement on our land and the erection of solar panels will most significantly change the habitat for this native bird.

I strongly object to this project.

Neither the consumer nor the environment can afford this project.

The developer is the only beneficiary of this project.

I would like to make a submission to the Spark Dinawan Solar Project SSD-50725959.

I object to this planned industrial solar project.

There will be major inconveniences to residents during the lengthy construction process. The increased traffic will negatively impact residents and local road users, increasing travel times to locals and travellers. The construction noise is also a major concern to residents near to the site – construction traffic will dramatically increase, particularly on the local roads.

Solar panels are NOT environmentally friendly – made with a toxic mix of gallium arsenide, tellurium, silver, crystalline silicon, lead, cadmium, and heavy earth materials. Solar panels deteriorate, resulting in lost efficiency, total failure or even fire. They get damaged by hail, wind and fire and potentially leach their toxic chemicals into the soil and water courses. Major damage does happen – such as with the Beryl Solar plant in 2020 with impacts from heavy rain, a lightning strike, inverter damage and other failures. The contamination risks to the land and through the water courses will not be tolerated by the local community.

PV solar systems are also prone to fires from panel and electrical equipment failures causing risk to nearby farms, native bush and the community, as accessing the fires on/near a solar site is difficult and limited for safety reasons. Gunnedah Rural Fire Service has confirmed that firefighters can only fight fires in a solar plant from the perimeter due to dangerous high voltages and the possibility of toxic gases. In August 2022 a small grass fire near Beryl solar plant required a dozen emergency vehicles and three water-bombing helicopters to protect the solar plant and nearby farm. A small fire of this size could potentially be put out by easily and quickly by minimal fire crew, yet this small fire took four hours and multiple crew to bring the situation under control.

The current proposal also includes a BESS. Batteries use lead, lithium and cobalt, all of which are hazardous materials. This is of much concern to residents and the community as ordinary fire suppression measures cannot extinguish a Lithium chemical reaction fire. A fire that occurred in the 350MW/450MWh BESS during testing on 30 July 2021 in Geelong, Victoria shows how dangerous it can be for nearby residents. When one of the 13 tonne battery packs caught fire, it burned for three days and resulted in the evacuation of residents because of the toxic fumes generated.

Huge solar plants are not visually appealing and will impact near and not-so-near neighbours. As well as potentially impacting the value of neighbouring properties, the natural beauty of this district is very popular with travellers and visitors. Placing solar panels over scenic farmland will likely deter tourists visiting as the once productive farming land will be a reflective sea of solar panels.

Apart from removing land from productive farming for up to 35 years there is the likely long-term damage to the soil. The long term impact to the soil (from compaction and potentially leaching of toxic chemicals into the soil) could ruin its ability to be productive farmland in the future.

I urge DPE to listen to those most heavily impacted by this project and to consider the cumulative impact on the district by multiple developments. This project should be rejected.

I consider the solar project to be unreliable, unaffordable and will cause wilful environmental destruction to our native landscape.

I object to this project for many reasons:
Extensive solar farms remove agricultural land from the landscape and remove the land from public access.
The land is contaminated by the structures themselves and the infrastructure that is required to build and operate the facility.
There is no provision for the restoration of the land to its pre-development status.
The construction places a burden on the region surrounding the project, with few people benefitting and many paying the price personally and as an Australian taxpayer. The region is required to host many of the construction workers and absorb the removing of local skilled tradespeople from the community.
Most of the crucial materials in the projects construction are imported from overseas and add to our National debt.
Solar power is intermittent and requires back-up and batteries in normal times, let alone in times of unusual weather or emergencies. So electricity generation facilities have to be duplicated, which increases its expense hugely.
New power generating facilities require new transmission lines and connections to the electricity grid, which adds a whole new layer of expense as well as alteration to the natural and existing environment.
A grand scheme for reducing carbon emissions needs to be planned with vision, consideration of the environment and the people impacted, and a view to the financial burden being forced on Australians into the future. There are other ways and Australia shouldn't be bullied into hurried positions.

I object to the proposed Dinawan Solar Farm.
Electricity should be generated where it is needed which negates the need for transmission lines ploughing through agricultural land. Solar projects take valuable food and fibre producing land out of production when in reality Australia's growing population needs more food. How and where will this be produced, and by whom given that our Government is doing everything to chase farmers off their land, and/or restrict their practices?
Visual and noise impacts from solar, and wind projects are felt heavily in rural and regional areas given our scenic and peaceful vistas. The serenity is often a large part of the reason for people moving to these areas. The impact studies are done by professionals who, more often than not live in metropolitan areas where seeing such infrastructure is not unusual, and it is not their homes being impacted. How is this fair to the residents forced to live with such impacts?
The majority of the power produced by large scale solar, and wind, projects will be used in metropolitan areas. Why does rural and regional Australia have to bear the burden of producing all of the power when there is plenty of roof space for solar panels and beaches, golf courses and football fields for wind turbines in our major cities?
The amount of fossil fuels used to manufacture materials, construct and maintain 'renewable energy' projects makes the power from large scale infrastructure projects more brown than 'green'. All of the components of these projects should have to be manufactured, constructed and maintained using renewable energy!
If the "rapid transition to renewables" continues on its current trajectory Australian citizens will find themselves naked, cold and sober as agriculture will be dead.

I object to Australia's reliance on weather dependent energy technologies. Slave labour is used to produce part of the systems we are employing. We will never be able to have enough battery storage to make our grid reliable.

I object to this unnecessary, unreliable, non-base load power source that is expensive and pays scant attention to damaged fauna habitat. I urge the Government to go nuclear hitched up to the existing grid. We will eventually go nuclear so why not now?

I represent and Environmental Group known as Save Our Woodlands Inc. our website is http://saveourwoodlands.org
I object to the Dinawan Solar Farm on the following grounds:

Solar and wind energy is not going to solve our shortage of electricity in the future. Both solar and wind energy are intermittent and will not provide our base power supply. We will need coal, gas or nuclear energy to provide base power into the future. Germany as an example of a country with large amounts of wind and solar energy production, Germany imports power from France, which is nuclear. Germany also exports electricity which is the nature of the intermittent production from solar and wind energy sources. Sometimes there is not enough and sometimes there is too much.

The latest figures are here:
“Germany Electricity Imports: France data was reported at 1,485,644.000 MWh in May 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 489,358.000 MWh for Apr 2023. CEIC Data (2023).”

South Australia the one so called “green” state in Australia, imports brown coal based power from Victoria.

2: When solar farm are decommissioned can the area be returned to agriculture? Solar panels carry toxic waste in the form of heavy metals, (lead, cadmium, lithium, strontium, nickel, barium, zinc, and copper) and metalloids (selenium). We cannot envisage that a huge solar farm will have no broken panels during its lifetime. Panels are broken during construction, they are broken during the life of the project and large numbers can be broken if there is a major storm event.

Robertson et al. (2019) states that Selenium, strontium, lithium, nickel, and barium levels measured in soil samples increased significantly in samples close to PV (solar) systems. The heavy metals then contaminate the land and the water surrounding the land. As these substances do not disintegrate the land can never be returned to agriculture. T

3: Can solar panels be recycled? Peplow (2022) states “today’s technologies for recycling these units are inefficient and rarely deployed. That is an enormous problem. PV panels contain toxic materials, like lead and cadmium, that can cause environmental pollution, yet many are dumped in landfills when they die. They also contain valuable materials that could be reused to make new solar cells, but today these resources are mostly wasted.”
4: There is no provision in the legislation for the decommissioning of solar or wind farms. If a company wants to set up a mine, they have to pay a bond for the remediation of the area but a solar of wind farm does not have to pay anything. Our planning bodies hope that the final company owning the farm will remediate the area, as promised, but what if they just say, “Too bad, we're leaving?” These are overseas companies, and we have no recourse. Then the land holder becomes liable, and after they declare bankruptcy, it will be up to the people of NSW, via the Government to clean up the mess. Our Government's planning process needs some serious rethinking.

The Solution.

We are not against the use of renewable energy but we do not need to destroy our environment to achieve our aims. We could easily place solar panels on every building in Sydney and other cities and towns. We could store the energy locally (for each suburb or town) and distribute this locally.

Big Business could still make a lot of money without the environmental cost, each household could be paid for the use of their roof instead on one landholder being paid a huge amount. We would not need destructive and expensive transmission lines and we could start this Immediately instead of having to wait 10 or more years.

In addition we do need to recycle solar panels BUT this cost must be carried by the developer and there needs to be an up front deposit for the decommissioning of any major renewable project.

References:

CEIC Data (2023)
https://www.ceicdata.com› electricity-imports-and-exports

Robinson, S. & Meindl, G. (2019), Potential for leaching of heavy metals and metalloids from crystalline silicon photovoltaic systems. 10.5027/jnrd.v9i0.02.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339029474_Potential_for_leaching_of_heavy_metals_and_metalloids_from_crystalline_silicon_photovoltaic_systems
Peplow, M ( 2022), Solar Panels Face Recycling Challenge, ACS Cent. Sci. 2022, 8, 3, 299–302
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.2c00214

I oppose this project because it is very unlikely that the decommissioning, removal and land rehabilitation will occur due to the exorbitant cost that will be involved. The cost in 20 years or so time will likely exceed today's cost to build the project. Unlike mining companies there is no requirement for this developer to lodge a bond to cover this future cost. Who will ultimately pay? The new owner of the plant, the host landholders, the local ratepayers or the State and/or Federal governments. The project must not be approved unless such a bond is in place.

Despite decades of rolling out wind and solar plants in many countries the CO2 emissions still rise every year. Wind and solar projects, including the proposed BESS, just make no difference. This project will increase atmospheric CO2e and increase our NEM electricity system costs to me and other end consumers. I object to any project that costs me heaps for no benefit at all. Don't approve this useless project!

My objection to this project is based on the waste of the Australian's electricity consumers and taxpayers money on what is after all an old previously abandoned technology. No subsidies should be required as the industry is decades old and well advanced in other countries. It is not a start up industry as over 35% of the NEM capacity is already made up of industrial wind and solar plants and rooftop solar.

This project just adds more damage to our already poorly maintained regional and local roads. Who pays for the wear and tear all these high numbers of extra heavy vehicles that will travel over hundreds of kilometres of our roads. Not the overseas owners of these projects. Ultimately the ratepayers and general public will pay. I therefore oppose this project.

Save Our Surroundings objects to this proposed project as it poses so many risks to the local human and animal populations. Risks still include grass/bush fires, noise, soil and water contamination, very high disposal costs, unclear responsibility for end-of-life cleanup, lack of economic viable recycling of such huge volumes of toxic components, and the risk of obsolesce as much better technologies, such as small nuclear reactors become available over the next few years. Australia's oldest wind electricity plant recently reached its end-of-life and rather than undertake the decommissioning, etc. that it promised, the owner just declared it a museum. How many more solar projects and wind projects will not meet their EIS commitments, as is happening in other countries? No upfront bond means no skin in the game.

Save Our Surroundings (SOS) objects to the proposed BESS Works in this project because there are still so many unresolved concerns about risks and issues involved with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), for instance:
1. Lack of research into the life-cycle of BESS
2. Resource intensive requirements
3. Involves slavery in mining and production
4. Environmentally damaging
5. Fire starting risks increased
6. Fire-fighting dangers increased
7. Local fire risks considerably increased
8. Expensive
9. Short life-span
10. Variable operation
11. Very little Australian content
12. Increased energy and sovereign risks
13. Roads and road travel are impacted
14. Electricity charging and air-conditioning requirements are high
15. Classed as hazardous goods
16. No certainty at end of the short life of a BESS
17. Increased dependency on intermittent electricity generation
18. Poor viability
19. Increase retail electricity prices.

Please refer to the attachment for details.

I object to 2 million solar panels, which are not green being put on beautiful Riverina countryside. Intermittent solar cannot power one million homes, this is an untruth claimed by the proponent. This project is environmental vandalism and a few years hence will be redundant and become a gigantic wasre burden.

I object to the Dinawan solar farm as per my attached submission.

I object to Dinawan Solar Farm because it will destroy food and fibre producing agricultural land. Permanently destroying agricultural land is not acceptable for any reason - doing so for unreliable and expensive energy sources is ridiculous and unethical.

Solar farms/factories are an absolute eye-sore on the landscapes. Why should communities have to put up with this when there is a high chance they did not vote for these? Put them closer to the cities where the NIMBYs wanted these forms of energy. If they are not destructive, then clear land in the national parks to house these. Developers can then offset in rural/regional NSW and perhaps plant trees for livestock on farming properties. Solar factories are too unreliable as it is not sunny 24 hours a day, 7 days week. They are toxic to the environment, communities and nearby animals/livestock.