Community

Our commitment to people and sustainability

Increasing the use of solar energy is important to reduce our consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels, responsible for the damaging impacts of climate change. FRV is passionate about this project and recognises the importance of ensuring the project is a success for the local community.

Extensive community engagement has been conducted during the planning of the Walla Walla Solar Farm. This engagement will continue.

FRV will make every effort to update neighbours and the community as we progress with our plans for the solar farm – it’s important to us that residents feel they have every opportunity to talk with us while the project is still in the detailed design stage.

If you are a member of the community or are interested in the project, we encourage you to share any thoughts, concerns, or suggestions you may have. You can provide comments directly to us here.

Community benefits

During construction, FRV will look to engage local workers and suppliers, ensuring significant investment in the local economy. In addition, the solar farm will contribute more than $2.7 million to the local community, by providing a Development Contribution to a Greater Hume Council Community Fund. Council will distribute these funds to approved local projects in the Walla Walla, Culcairn area. A committee will be established to decide how the Community Fund should be distributed within the local community. For more information, or if you are interested in participating in the committee, please contact Greater Hume Council here.

Information to Community members

During the construction, FRV need to undertake few works which require an extension to normal site operating hours to complete these works quickly and efficiently. This includes extension to normal weekday working hours and to work on weekends. For these works, specific approval from the Department and the Planning Secretary are sought before commencement of these Out of Hours Works. The copies of the Department approval for:

1. The proposed outage from 21 Sep 2024 to 27 Sep 2024 is here.
2. The proposed outage on 13 Oct 2024 is here.