It was standing room only in a forum to discuss the viability of large-scale solar farming throughout the Riverina on Wednesday night.
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A small window for discussion presented opportunities for some in the crowd of a hundred to direct their concerns towards members of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment.
Walla business owner Trish Feuerhardt described how the planned transmission line plant would affect her wedding services.
"We have weddings on that land, that's our business," she told the forum.
"Every bride to get married in the next 12 months has called me to check whether they need to cancel it or have it somewhere else because we'll have a huge solar farm out the back. It doesn't seem to matter that it will ruin our business."
Glenellen resident Jim Perrett questioned the logic of developing such large plants around the region.
"For three months of the year, there's fog so there isn't going to be much sunlight captured then. It would be much better to them all out in the middle of the country's arid land," he said.
When the state's five remaining coal fire power stations are switched off by 2043, it will leave an energy production shortfall of up to 10 gigawatts a day.
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"The energy section in NSW is going through a transition at the moment. The big question is how are we going to get our energy over the next 50 years. NSW uses 40 gigawatts of energy every day, so the question is, what's going to replace the missing 10?," said the department's David Kitto.
The NSW government has identified the Riverina and Murray region as a strategic vantage in connecting energy stations in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.
Across the state, there are 70 projects slated for delivery, eight of which have so far been built. Of the remainder, the majority will be developed in the Riverina and Murray
The 250 hectare site in Bomen is now one of 19 sites in the region to be approved. It attracted some of the most objections, with most concerning the re-appropriation of prime farming land.
"Solar development has come about very quickly, but it has grown rather large over the past few years and is continuing to grow larger," Mr Kitto said.
But Mr Kitto also admitted that the biggest problem with replacing existing infrastructure with renewable energy is that it was often unreliable.
"The sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow. So what do we do when we have extra demand during peak times?" he said.
"There's no one road map to supplying the nation's power over the next 40 years. It'll most likely be a combination of things, but of most importance is that we ask, 'how do we keep the lights on, the prices down and the emissions low while establishing a new energy system?"
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