Countrywide Energy has an application with Wangaratta Council to use a 15-hectare paddock and visited on Thursday to spruik potential benefits of more jobs and lower electricity bills.

Standing in dreary conditions, CWE director Geoff Drucker said sunshine on 35,000 photovoltaic panels in the North Wangaratta field would produce 10 megawatts of energy – enough to power 2500 homes.

“We’ll be able to generate energy here using renewable sources, clean energy, which will be fed into the industrial estate,” he said.

“It’s going to be able to sure up jobs and sure up the businesses that are there for about 25 years and beyond.”

Construction would create 50 to 90 jobs, with up to 10 electrician and maintenance roles to continue when the solar farm was complete.

Organisers had spoken to nearby businesses, such as Alpine MDF, about setting energy prices which would not increase above the CPI.

CWE director Leigh Newbery said the solar energy could feed into the wider electricity grid on weekends to power Wangaratta homes.

“If we can continue to work collaboratively with Wangaratta to be able to draw more businesses here, that would be a great outcome,” he said.

Mr Drucker said the possibility was open to double the size of the solar farm, using nearby businesses’ land.

“We have a few hurdles that we need to jump before we do actually start construction,” he said.

A series of consultants will look at issues such as how “glint and glare” from the panels will affect drivers’ vision on the Hume Freeway as they passed the Wangaratta-Eldorado Road site.

Chair of administrators Ailsa Fox said she believed the “exciting development opportunity” would be approved as soon as the paperwork was complete.

“This is what everyone is talking about – clean energy, solar energy and renewable energy – so I’d be very disappointed if we do get objections to this,” she said.

CWE planned to start construction at the end of 2016 and complete the project by the end of 2017.