Solar power planned for Lennox wastewater plant

Ballina to install solar at its waste treatment plant, doubling the number of such installations in the local council area, according to the local newspaper.

According to The Echo, The Ballina Shire Council wants to see the impressive solar panel array at the Ballina wastewater plant duplicated at the Lennox Head treatment plant.

‘It’s the most up to date in the country,’ Ballina’s mayor David Wright said.

‘It been running 12 months now but it hasn’t been fully commissioned because there have been a few things needing to be fixed but once its fully operational it will most likely save us the equivalent of the emissions from 60 houses.

Cr Wright told the Echo  would be ‘going the whole hog’ once battery technology improved to allow overnight storage of electricity, with the size of the plant at Lennox Head being the only impediment.

‘At Lennox we don’t have the space on the ground that we have in Ballina but we’re looking at other options such as leasing land’.

The Ballina solar system is designed to conservatively produce 466,000 kilowatt hours per year, and will deliver savings of $9,500 a month. It will will pay for itself in approximately 7-years based on modest electricity price increases.

‘Once payback is reached, the system should generate enough electricity in its lifetime to save council a further $2 to $2.5 million.” Cr Wright told the Echo councillors would consider expanding the Lennox Head facility to include solar early this year.