A bid to get some national direction on the expansion of
solar farms could see a large-scale consent in Canterbury
decided by the proposed fast-track
legislation.

Environment Canterbury gave its support
last month to an Environment Protection Agency (EPA)
proposal to ask the Environment Minister to ‘call in’ a
consent application for a proposed 670 hectare solar farm
near Twizel.

Speaking at a council meeting on
Wednesday, operations director Stephen Hall said the EPA had
since sent a letter advising the Minister to wait for the
Fast-track Approvals Bill to come into effect.

The
Environment Minister may ‘call in’ the decision-making
process for resource consents when it is considered ‘‘a
proposal of national significance’’.

Far north
Solar Farm Ltd has applied to the regional council and to
the Mackenzie District Council for resource consents to
establish and operate a large-scale, 670ha, solar farm on a
968ha property.

The applications were publicly
notified and submissions have closed.

A hearing has
yet to be scheduled, pending the outcome of the ‘call
in’ request.

At its peak, the proposed solar farm
would generate 420 megawatts of electricity, which was
around four percent of New Zealand’s of total electricity
generation capacity in 2022.

Far North Solar Farm Ltd
has also applied to Environment Canterbury and the Hurunui
District Council to build a 180.8ha solar farm near
Waipara.

Mr Hall said the council’s advice was the
consent application had ‘‘national significance’’ as
there was a need for national direction around large-scale
solar farms and the protection of ‘‘very unique
landscape’’.

Acting chairperson Craig Pauling said
the council had given its feedback on calling-in the consent
process on the basis it would follow the usual
process.

‘‘It has raised some very important
discussion because when we put this through we had the
Environment Court and other processes in front of us, which
we have had experience with.

‘‘But now we are
looking at new legislation which we don’t know what it
looks like.’’

Consents planning manager Aurora
Grant said it was unclear how much input the council would
have, should the consents be considered under the new
legislation.

‘‘The short answer is we don’t
know. The process will be quite different to a ‘call in’
process, but we really don’t know yet.’’

South
Canterbury councillors Peter Scott and Nick Ward expressed
concern at the impact on the national environment.

Cr
Scott said it made sense to seek the input of the EPA and
the Ministry for the Environment, ‘‘because it is not
something we normally do and we need to consider an
eco-system which is fragile’’.

Cr Ward suggested
it would be better to install solar panels on roofs,
‘‘where it is needed rather than in a natural
landscape’’.

Councillors Deon Swiggs and Joe
Davies expressed concern the Fast-track Approvals Bill could
be used to circumvent local and regional decision
making.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by
RNZ and NZ On
Air.

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