One of Australia’s largest solar farms went up in flames during Saturday’s heatwave, with some locals claiming a faulty panel sparked a grassfire that swept through the site.
The fire started at Wellington North solar farm, near Dubbo in NSW, on Saturday and burned through an 87 hectare area, and operator Lightsource bp said it was assessing the damage and trying to confirm the cause of the fire.
The 400MW solar farm has 1.2 million panels spread across 317 hectares, and while the farm allows sheep to graze underneath the panels, some farmers opposed its construction on what they described as “fertile and highly valuable land”.
Dubbo Regional Council deputy mayor Phil Toynton, a vocal opponent of renewable energy projects, shared video of the fire on social media and said he was worried about toxic smoke from the blaze.
NSW One Nation senator Sean Bell said he had been contacted by Australians concerned about the environmental and health risks of the fire.
“This isn’t just a normal paddock fire. It’s a fire around industrial electrical infrastructure, panels, cabling, inverters and high-voltage gear, in the middle of dry farmland,” he wrote.
“And if equipment is damaged, there are serious questions about toxic smoke, debris and runoff, and what that could mean for surrounding landowners. Regardless of what sparked this blaze, the lesson is the same: industrial solar is bringing new hazards into an already high risk fire landscape, and our nation’s farmland shouldn’t be the test site for it.”
Former One Nation candidate Stuart Bonds also posted about the blaze, writing: “Net Zero is the gift that keeps on destroying. As fun as kinetic sand and asbestos in wind turbines. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost property in the current fires hitting the state this fire season. Stay safe everyone.”
Other locals posted photos they claimed showed where the fire started, and one eyewitness said “faulty wiring” in a panel was the cause.
But a Lightsource bp spokesperson said: “At this stage, it is too soon to determine the cause of the fire or the extent of any impact to the site. Our teams are focused on supporting emergency services on site and following established incident response processes.”
Header image: Left, right, the solar farm on fire (Facebook).
