Some of the challenges on this site is one, main packing area, getting access up into the roof area, how much kilowatts of panels and how much power is going to be required for the longer term. So future proofing, and also, the pumps is distributed quite widely throughout the different farms. So hence here is probably a good kilometre 1.2 kilometres from the main packing shed. So we had to locate, identify and prepare a site that's specific for their power requirements here. They have a 90 kilowatt pump here. Thankfully, it's a VSD variable speed drive, which requires a lot of power, potentially up to 90 average 70, 80, which is perfect for 100 kilowatt solar system.
Though this time of year, it does get quite hot, regularly temperatures can be anywhere between 32 up to 40 degrees, winter is quite good to just get nice and cool up here as well. Other challenges is again, just so far from all their supply, where they're going to get their cartons, their fertiliser, where the water comes from the channels and the cost of energy to distribute that. On this particular farm, I think it's around about 400 plus acres of land here.
This is all volcanic with basalt underground. So it was a bit of a challenge to get soil test to make sure that we could ground mount. They wanted a noninvasive ground mount system with it. So that requires a sure foot design from Victoria. It was an Australia invention, where there's no concrete required, and we had to make sure that we didn't hit any big boulders because the Atherton Tablelands is actually littered with a lot of round large basalt boulders.
What were the challenges of installing solar power on a North Queensland farm?
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