The last few years have seen the rise of solar power as a method of providing electricity to thousands of homes throughout Australia. As of 2022 Australia has seen the production of over 3.19 million solar installations providing more than 10% of Australia’s total power usage. This is an astronomically high number and shows that green methods of power generation are still on the rise, and are going to continue into the future.
With this rise of solar power projects, farmers and landowners are understandably sectioning off their land to solar power. If a farm provides around 25 acres of land to solar power, it can potentially power over 1000 homes. If you yourself are a landowner, thinking of going green, it’s important to begin taking the right steps in understanding what equipment you’ll need to install a solar farm. With the influx of solar farm applications and approvals it’s important you get your foot in the door and start planning.
This is not a comprehensive list of everything you need for a solar farm, as you’ll need a multitude of grants and approvals, and need a whole novel’s worth of solar farm equipment lists to actually build it. But we’re going to provide you with some key equipment to get you on your way, in transforming a bare patch of land into an electricity-generating field.
Section off an area
So this isn’t technically a piece of equipment, but it’s important to know what part of land will be covered in solar panels. This means if you do have livestock or crops, you can plan out their positioning accordingly. As we mentioned before 25 acres of your land could provide power to over 1000 homes in Australia, that is by no means a small number. If you think you have the space, and funding go for a size that will see returns in providing power to the grid.
Forestry clearing
Maybe your land has a big patch of trees that’s going to need removing, this is where forestry clearing equipment comes in. Horizontal grinders for example are great at clearing large units of land. Tree chippers are also useful if you’re going to need to dispose of a few trees and could use some of the mulch. Now that you have the forestry out of the way, it’ll be time to get the surface itself ready
Landscaping equipment
First and foremost you’re going to need a lot of landscaping work done. After all, you’re going to have a large field worth of land to flatten out to fit in the solar panels and equipment. Skid steers and excavators are a great place to start.
Excavators will be great for getting the bulk of the work done. They’ll be able to flatten out the land so you can get a level area for the farm. Hills and land curvatures are detrimental to getting the most out of a solar panel, as they need to be getting as much sunlight as possible. So it’s best if they have as much clearance as possible.
Skid steers are also a great machine, as they’ll allow you to do any smaller levelling jobs. Most of them are rideable, and come with a number of different attachments, ensuring the ground you’re working on will be as flat as possible.
Solar Pile drivers
You’re not going to be able to install any solar units without a solar pile driver. To support the weight of Solar panels requires a steel frame to stand on, these frames need to be driven into the ground by a pile driver. When in use the pile driver has a pneumatic hammer that continuously knocks away at the top of the steel frame to drive it into the ground. In most cases, it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to drive in a solar panel frame. Timeframes on how long it may take, largely depend on the desired amount of solar panels to install as well as the ground type.
