NZ's biggest solar farm to be built

[harm_less]

In that regard I can't understand why our government isn't incentivising installation of domestic PV installations. It makes so much sense when combined with home charging of electric vehicles both in terms of relieving burden on the national grid and also in reducing people's power bills.

And in reply to those who are advocating hydro but dismissing utility scale solar generation the area of potentially productive land required by solar farms is minor compared to that which a hydro lake floods, and the carbon input required by concrete structures such as hydro dams and their construction is massive and would take decades to offset by their generation capacity.

The last dam considered would have seen 2nd gen Bush flooded in unusable gorges.  This solar farm would see 1000 hectares covered in panels and you know it wouldn't be like what you posted earlier.

The Agrivoltaics example I posted a link to earlier was a case of possibilities for those areas where horticultural land warrants dual productivity. I would argue that the horticultural intensity in NZ is not of a level that makes such development necessary and/or feasible.

Not familiar with which hydro scheme you are referring to as you provide no references to it but I would suggest that the carbon load of the concrete and construction required would be a consideration in its environmental viability. The construction and materials input of a solar farm would be very minor in comparison.

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the day is coming when our energy will not be generated on the planet itself, but from up there. *points to sky*

Virtually all of the energy sources we use here in NZ have a solar origin. Hydro is reliant on rainfall that results from sun driven weather, as is the case for wind and wave activity. Fossil fuels are the result of photosynthetic activity from Earth's prehistoric past which are compressed and concentrated by geological activity over the eons.  Tidal energy is more driven by lunar influences, but still cosmic in origin.

Nuclear is our replication of the sun's energy production mechanism but obviously not part of NZ's energy generation for the foreseeable future.