Five-megawatt Solar Farm and Resource Recovery Center opens at Summer Hill

BY ISABEL EVERETT

An $8 million dollar, five-megawatt solar farm and $6 million dollar resource recovery center has opened at Summer Hill Waste Management center.

The solar farm spans the length of 5 football fields, sitting on a previous land fill site, and is expected to save rate payers around $9 million dollars over its 25-year life span. 

The farm will produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 1,300 households, significantly cutting councils electricity costs. 

"Its an impressive site to see whats on the surface, but to also understand that this is on a prior landfill site that wasn't capable of any agricultural purpose, so to give it such a good environmental purpose is really clever," Port Stephens MP and Shadow Minister for the Environment Kate Washington said. 

A recent purchase-power agreement to source electricity from the state's largest wind farm, moves Newcastle city council to become the first local government in NSW to move to 100 percent renewable's as of next year. 

"Newcastle city council is the first council to have created and built a solar farm and as of January first, all of councils operations will be sourced from renewable energy and that's a remarkable outcome," Kate Washington said.  

Newcastle residents can drop off pre-sorted recyclables such as scrap metals, sorted yellow bin recyclables, paper and cardboard, clean untreated wood and soft plastic at the Resource Recovery Center free of charge, diverting around 5,700 tonnes of waste from landfill each year. 

"Newcastle city council is doing exactly what we need to see happening, they are giving people the opportunity to be more environmentally conscious," Kate Washington said. 

"Communities across the state are already there, they want to know what they can do to achieve better environmental outcomes, to reduce land fill and improve our sustainability." 

State MP for Port Stephens Kate Washington, Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and Cr Peta Winney-Baartz 

State MP for Port Stephens Kate Washington, City of Newcastle Business Development Manager Mark Johnson,Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes, Hon Taylor Martin MLC and Cr Peta Winney-Baartz 

Summerhill Solar Farm a Shovel-load Closer to Reality

BY LAUREN FREEMANTLE

The first sod has been turned today on a disused landfill site at Summerhill Waste Management Centre, marking the beginning of construction on the region's largest solar farm.

City of Newcastle is promising the five-megawatt solar arm will increase our energy generation tenfold and save ratepayers $9 million over its 25-year life.

The farm covers an area of about five football fields on the old Wallsend Borehole Colliery site.

It will consist of 14,500 solar arrays and will produce enough energy to run the equivalent of all the City of Newcastle's facilities during the day, normally amounting to $4 million a year.

It follows eight other solar installations at the Waratah Works Depot , Art Gallery, City, Wallsend and New Lambton libraries, No.1 and No.2 Sportsgrounds and Newcastle Museum.

  

A $6.5 million dollar loan from Australia's Clean Energy Finance Corporation is helping to finance the colossal project, with solar panels and infrastructure built by international property and infrastructure groups Lendlease and EMC.

"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," Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said.

The new facility builds on one of Australia's most advanced renewable energy setups at a waste facility - with a 2.2megawatt landfill gas generator and a small wind turbine already located at Summerhill.

Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and Deputy Lord Mayor Declan Clausen turn the first sod at the Solar Farm. 

New Recycling Facility Launched at Summerhill

BY LAUREN FREEMANTLE 

Summerhill Waste Management Facility has today unveiled the Newcastle Community Recycling Centre. 

Nearly 100 similar centres are being rolled out across NSW as part of the state government's half-billion-dollar Waste Less, Recycle More campaign. 

Materials previously bound for the tip can now be recycled, with the following household problem waste accepted: 

• Paint 
• Motor oils and cooking oils 
• Gas bottles
• Fire extinguishers 
• Car and household batteries 
• Smoke detectors; and 
• Fluorescent light globes and tubes 

Business Development Manager at Summer Hill, Mark Johnson said many of the materials can be re-purposed for future use. 

"With the motor oils and other oils that we get," Mr Johnson said, "the contaminants are taken out of those and then the base materials are refined back into a lubricant."

Mark Johnson encouraged residents to check their homes to see how they can best make use of the new facility. 

"...By checking what you've got in your cupboards, have a quick look, see all of the stuff that you're not using and put it in a box, make sure it's sealed and bring it along, then we can take care of it for you," he said. 

The Summerhill Waste Management facility will be closed on Good Friday. 

Mark Johnson, Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and Taylor Martin MLC welcome the new facility.