Tasmania’s George Town council has given planning approval to the 288 MW Cimitiere Plains solar project.
The project – to be located on cattle and sheep grazing land, a short distance away from the big Bell Bay aluminium smelter – is being developed by German-based ib vogt.
It is the third major solar project proposal for Tasmania, following the 288 MW Connorville solar project now under construction, and the 255 MW Weasel solar project.
The Cimitiere Plains Solar Farm will span 454 hectares of dryland agricultural land northeast of George Town, though not all of it will host infrastructure. Exclusion zones have been applied to areas with steep topography, Aboriginal heritage sites, and patches of threatened vegetation.
About 600,000 single-axis tracking PV panels will be mounted across the site, optimised to follow the sun from east to west and maximise energy yield.
Power from the solar arrays will be converted to 33 kV AC onsite via 84 distributed power conversion units (PCUs), then stepped up to 110 kV at a substation before being exported via a six-kilometre, double-circuit transmission line.
The line will traverse mixed-use land, including regenerating forest and land forming part of the Bell Bay smelter buffer zone, to connect into TasNetworks’ George Town substation. Pole heights will average 33 metres, with a 50-metre-wide easement to be cleared for safety and access.
The project is expected to generate 620 GWh of electricity annually – around 5.9 per cent of Tasmania’s 2040 renewable energy target.
Its summer-weighted generation profile complements Tasmania’s hydro system, which typically experiences lower inflows during warmer months.
The site will remain in agricultural use post-construction, with sheep grazing under the arrays to manage groundcover.
The developers report that only about 162 hectares will be directly shaded by panels, with minimal expected reduction in pasture productivity. Measures to manage environmental impacts include heritage exclusion buffers, acoustic modelling showing noise compliance, low visual impact assessments, and a glint and glare study that found no significant safety or amenity risks.
Construction is expected to take 12 to 18 months, creating up to 300 peak jobs.
A traffic and road-use plan, as well as a bushfire management strategy, have been developed to address local concerns.