Photo: www.whitehat.com.au
Melbourne is not just a beautiful city in Australia that some consider the country’s cultural capital, it also has the world’s largest urban tram network. 182.7 million passenger trips were recorded in 2012/13, and that number has not been decreasing. They may be using electricity to help citizens commute, but that power still comes from burning coal and gas.
We don’t regularly cover public transport that much, but whenever we hear about big initiatives like this one, we believe it’s worth mentioning. The proposal is to power Melbourne’s entire network of electric trams with locally generated solar energy.
Building a solar powered farm to power an entire city’s public transportation and massively reduce carbon emissions? How come nobody thought of that already? They did in the capital and most populous town in the state of Victoria. In fact, they didn’t just plan the approach, according to Renew Economy, the construction of two 20 MW single-axis tracking solar plants is ready to go on one of the sites.
However, they are waiting final government approval, which they had failed to receive under the previous Coalition government. According to the source, the two solar farms would produce about the same amount of energy used by the city’s tram network, which might not be the happiest news for coal producers.
Dave Holland, a co-founder of the Australia Solar Group, said that their company had already spent around $3 million Australian Dollars ($2.35 US Dollars) on the project to date. If they get the green light, further $70 Australian Dollar ($ 5.48 US Dollars) - which it had already secured will be spent.
As we said, for a city that has the biggest tram system in the world such a move would most likely be a big punch in the carbon-emitting system. We can only hope the government will eventually back up the proposal.
Building a solar powered farm to power an entire city’s public transportation and massively reduce carbon emissions? How come nobody thought of that already? They did in the capital and most populous town in the state of Victoria. In fact, they didn’t just plan the approach, according to Renew Economy, the construction of two 20 MW single-axis tracking solar plants is ready to go on one of the sites.
However, they are waiting final government approval, which they had failed to receive under the previous Coalition government. According to the source, the two solar farms would produce about the same amount of energy used by the city’s tram network, which might not be the happiest news for coal producers.
Dave Holland, a co-founder of the Australia Solar Group, said that their company had already spent around $3 million Australian Dollars ($2.35 US Dollars) on the project to date. If they get the green light, further $70 Australian Dollar ($ 5.48 US Dollars) - which it had already secured will be spent.
As we said, for a city that has the biggest tram system in the world such a move would most likely be a big punch in the carbon-emitting system. We can only hope the government will eventually back up the proposal.
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