Lightyears Solar Brings Community-Scale Solar To Wairarapa

Lightyears Solar turns on its Waingawa Solar Farm, its latest community-scale project to go live.

The solar farm, officially opened by Energy Minister Simon Watts today, is just out of Masterton in the Wairarapa. Its 7700 panels will generate 4.7 megawatts of electricity at peak output, enough to power 1100 homes annually through the local Powerco network.

The farm is built over six hectares of a 12-hectare working farm, with the area used for solar leased from the landowner on a long-term basis. The panels are raised off the ground, allowing livestock to still graze the paddock, and they’re on trackers so they follow the sun as it moves across the sky, to increase power generation.

Creating agrivoltaic, dual-use solar designs is a hallmark feature of Lightyears’ solar farms, and they maintain or increase the productivity of the land they occupy. The farms also help mitigate climate change and the lifetime carbon offset of the Waingawa Solar Farm is the equivalent of planting nearly 60,000 trees over 30 years.

“All our solar farms connect to local distribution networks, which is Powerco in this case. This provides electricity for the local district, growing the renewable proportion of power supply in the area,” says Matt Shanks, Lightyears’ co-founder and director.

“We are receiving a lot of interest from farmers wanting solar on their land, the old no. 8-wire mentality is back, and smart farmers have always appreciated getting more from less. In this case that’s more value out of farmable land in the form of agricultural output and power or leasing output. The desire for agrivoltaic farming is entering the national consciousness, the demand is rocketing compared to just two years ago. Landowners are also doing their research, coming to us already well-informed about solar and the opportunities it provides.

“The landowners at Waingawa Solar Farm have also built a holiday property on their land and see solar as another way to diversify their income from the property whilst providing long term security.”

In March this year, solar generation hit record highs in New Zealand and Lightyears’ medium-sized solar farms are now a vital part of our national solar infrastructure.

“We complement the larger scale solar farms, slotting into communities around the country and connecting to the local distribution networks.

“Increasing the amount of new generation is critical to help lower wholesale electricity prices and power bills for everyone. The size of our solar farms also mean they can be constructed quickly to provide renewable energy to the grid at a time when it’s desperately needed,” says Shanks.

“Solar also works well with New Zealand’s existing hydro and wind, making the grid more diverse and it provides energy when it is most used, in the daytime for business, industry and irrigation.”

As well as the Waingawa Solar Farm, Lightyears Solar has built and operates a 7MW solar farm in Ashburton and a 2.4MW farm in Waiuku, south of Auckland.

“We have projects planned for Reefton on the West Coast, Kuratau in the North Island, and several more in Canterbury. We expect to put a new project into construction every two to three months this year. We’re also building a couple of medium-sized solar farms for industrial customers around New Zealand, where the power will be used directly by their factories.”

The power produced at the Waingawa Solar Farm is purchased by Manawa Energy under a Power Purchase Agreement and the construction was carried out by sub-contractors Downer, Sol Srv – Solar Services and several local contractors.

About Lightyears Solar

Lightyears Solar is a New Zealand-owned and operated company developing and constructing ground-mounted, community-scale solar farms connected to New Zealand’s electrical distribution networks.

Their solar farms support the electrification anddecarbonisation of industrial and transportenergy, to align with New Zealand’s carbonzero goals. The company aims to support productive agriculture via dual use farm design. For more, see www.lightyearssolar.co.nz.

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