SOLAR FARMS
Solar farms that actually stack up
Let's be direct. Solar farm economics in New Zealand are getting harder, not easier – and every new farm makes it harder still. We've seen developers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of effort, only to find the numbers no longer stack up. Others have farms already built and running on returns well below forecast.
Local can fix that – and turn your spare land into strong, future-proof returns.
WHY A SOLAR FARM
Two things are squeezing returns. New Zealand is approaching saturation of renewables for the power we currently use, so increasingly you're not paid enough for what you generate. And grid connection has become slow and expensive – for many sites, enough to stall or sink the project entirely.
LocalSmart changes the maths on both. We can often work around the grid bottleneck, and we deliver materially better returns on every unit you generate, because we time-shift when your power goes back in and sell it direct to local homes at retail rather than into a saturated wholesale market. We can also help secure long-term offtake agreements with major power users.
Get the economics right and everything else follows.
Beat the grid bottleneck
Connection delays and costs stall many projects; LocalSmart can often work around them.
New income from your land
Make idle or underused acreage generate steady returns for thirty years or more.
Better returns than wholesale
We time-shift your generation and sell direct to local homes, capturing the retail margin.
Dual-use land
Agrivoltaics let you keep grazing or growing beneath and between the panels.
Long-term offtake
We help negotiate supply contracts with large power users, locking in demand for decades.
Power your community
Share generation locally, supplying nearby homes with cheaper, greener power.
YOUR OPTIONS
SOLAR ONLY
The simplest way to lower your power bills.
SOLAR + BATTERY
Store the day's power for the evening and sell the excess back to the grid.
LOCALSMART AI SYSTEM
Solar + Battery + LocalSmart AI – utility-grade intelligent control that optimises output and shares power across the local network.
HOW IT WORKS
01
Free feasibility assessment
Land, grid connection, yield and returns
02
Engineered design
Layout optimised for your site and goals
03
Financing options
Including PPAs and structures that suit large projects
04
Build, connect and monitor
Local Energy delivers ground-mount at every scale, with lifetime monitoring
QUALITY AT SCALE
Local Energy designs and builds ground-mounted solar from lifestyle blocks to utility farms, using tier-1 modules (including agrivoltaic options) and utility-scale storage and smart control from partners including DMEGC, CESC and Powerglow.
CASE STUDY
LOCAL CAN DO ANY SIZE
Solar farms at scale need an EPC partner who can actually execute. One of our key partners, Endless Energy, is delivering Cambridge Wastewater Treatment Plant solar farm:
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1.2 MW ground-mount installation
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1,944 panels at 30° north-facing tilt
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Designed to generate 1.6 GWh a year
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Will offset 190 tonnes of CO₂ annually – like taking 1,030 cars off the road
FAQs
GET A QUOTE FOR YOUR FARM
Fill in the form to get started, and we'll follow up by email or phone to build your quote.