Plans for solar farm at Ormeau dramatically downgraded after Gold Coast Council finds issues

THE developer of a vast solar farm in one of the Gold Coast’s fastest-growing residential suburbs has been forced back to the drawing board and to dramatically downsize his plans for just one reason.

PLANS to build a solar farm 94 times the size of the field at Metricon Stadium have been dramatically scaled back.

The proponent, Ormed Investments, originally planned the solar farm to span the full 203ha of the site next to Ormeau Woods State High School, and was set to employ 10 staff and support the city’s power supply.

But Gold Coast council records show the applicant was forced to downgrade the plans after the council sought further information on 21 issues including its visual impact, zoning, parking, traffic, glare, flooding and its impact on wetlands and the nearby Gold Coast rail line.

Solar farms have been built across Australia in recent years.

The proposal is also complicated by the intra-regional transport corridor which is flagged as a future highway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Ormed investments is owned by South Africa-born couple Suman and Harsha Makan, who have vast landholdings in Ormeau, including the Ormeau Town Centre, which was put up for sale last year but is yet to sell.

The Makans feature in a Gold Coast Bulletin special report this Friday: Who Owns The Coast? When the city’s biggest landowners will be revealed.

Public submissions on the solar farm proposal are open until August 8.

AGL Energy's Broken Hill Solar Farm in NSW. Hollie Adams/The Australian

The application, submitted by Flannan Morley of Urban Systems, now proposes to take up 66ha of the 203ha site and will produce a maximum of 38 megawatts instead of the 100 megawatts initially touted.

The revised plans say no staff will be required as the farm will be “fully automated” and that it is “an interim use” of the land, which is earmarked for housing development after the farm’s 25-year life cycle.

The site spans rural, open space and emerging community zonings.

Infrastructure would consist of 112,240 solar panels, mounted on 7320 pivoting pylons, with the full structures reaching a maximum height of 4.2m.

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The plans include 17 inverter stations and vegetation designed to block the view of the facility from nearby housing and transport corridors.

Responding to a query from the Department of State Development, Mr Morley wrote that the infrastructure was modular and could be easily removed if the second highway project commenced.

“Our client is prepared to entertain a sunset condition on any approval for the solar farm application which requires removal of that part of the solar farm on the … future state controlled road,” he wrote.

Who owns the Coast? Special report in this Friday’s Gold Coast Bulletin