{"id":495,"date":"2018-11-13T03:16:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T03:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=495"},"modified":"2018-11-13T03:16:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T03:16:44","slug":"building-begins-on-citys-solar-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/11\/13\/building-begins-on-citys-solar-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Building begins on City&#039;s solar farm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Construction on the region&#8217;s biggest solar farm has begun after Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes turned the first sod today on a disused landfill site at the Summerhill Waste Management Centre facility.<br \/>\nThe City of Newcastle&#8217;s single largest investment in a renewable energy project follows eight other solar installations at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/Living\/Environment\/Energy-Resource-Management\/Council-building-upgrades\/City-Works-Depot-Solar-Electricity\">its Waratah Works Depot<\/a>\u00a0,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/Living\/Environment\/Energy-Resource-Management\/Council-building-upgrades\/Newcastle-Art-Gallery-Solar-Electricity\">Art Gallery<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/Living\/Environment\/Energy-Resource-Management\/Council-building-upgrades\/Newcastle-Art-Gallery-Solar-Electricity\">,<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/Living\/Environment\/Energy-Resource-Management\/Council-building-upgrades\/City-Library-Solar-Electricity\">City,\u00a0<\/a>Wallsend and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/Living\/Environment\/Energy-Resource-Management\/Council-building-upgrades\/New-Lambton-Library\">New Lambton libraries,\u00a0<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/Living\/Environment\/Energy-Resource-Management\/Council-building-upgrades\/No-1-Sportsground\">No.1\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/Living\/Environment\/Energy-Resource-Management\/Council-building-upgrades\/No-2-Sportsground\">No.2 Sportsgrounds<\/a>\u00a0and Newcastle Museum.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Inside-(1).jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/getattachment\/Council\/News\/Latest-News\/Building-begins-on-City-s-solar-farm-(1)\/Inside-(1).jpg.aspx\" alt=\"Inside-(1).jpg\" \/><strong><sup>Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and Deputy Mayor Declan Clausen turn the furst sod at the solar farm<\/sup><\/strong><br \/>\nThe five-megawatt solar arm will increase the City&#8217;s renewable energy generation capacity tenfold and save rate payers around $9 million over its 25-year lifespan.<br \/>\n&#8220;Today&#8217;s sod turning is a major milestone for this City and another exciting step forward in the delivery of renewable energy for our region,&#8221; the Lord Mayor said from Summerhill today.<br \/>\n&#8220;The solar farm will produce enough energy to run the equivalent of all the City of Newcastle&#8217;s facilities during the day, which represents significant environmental returns for ratepayers and millions of dollars in savings.&#8221;<br \/>\nCovering an area of around five football fields on a capped landfill once part of the Wallsend Borehole Colliery, the solar farm&#8217;s 14,500 photovoltaic solar arrays will help dramatically reduce the city&#8217;s $4m annual electricity bill.<br \/>\nThe City of Newcastle secured a $6.5 million loan from Australia&#8217;s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to help build the farm, which will comprise solar panels and infrastructure built by international property and infrastructure group Lendlease and EMC.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Inside.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/getattachment\/Council\/News\/Latest-News\/Building-begins-on-City-s-solar-farm-(1)\/Inside.jpg.aspx\" alt=\"Inside.jpg\" \/><br \/>\n<strong><sup>Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes, Program Coordinator Adam Clarke, Climate Council representative Cassie\u00a0Brenmer and\u00a0Deputy Mayor Declan Clausen<\/sup><\/strong><br \/>\nThe new facility builds on one of Australia&#8217;s most advanced renewable energy setups at a waste facility &#8212; with a 2.2megawatt landfill gas generator and a small wind turbine already located at Summerhill.<br \/>\nThe solar farm and the other rooftop installations already installed by the City are part of actions endorsed by the Cities Power Partnership, a Climate Council program in which cities and towns pledge key actions to reduce their climate impact.<br \/>\n&#8220;We are building sustainability into everything we do after reiterating our commitment last year to generate 30 per cent of our electricity needs from low-carbon sources and cut overall electricity usage by 30 per cent by 2020,&#8221; Cr Nelmes said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Construction on the region&#8217;s biggest solar farm has begun after Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes turned the first sod today on a disused landfill site at the Summerhill Waste Management Centre facility. The City of Newcastle&#8217;s single largest investment in a renewable energy project follows eight other solar installations at\u00a0its Waratah Works Depot\u00a0,\u00a0Art Gallery,\u00a0City,\u00a0Wallsend and\u00a0New Lambton &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/11\/13\/building-begins-on-citys-solar-farm\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Building begins on City&#039;s solar farm&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newcastle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}