The Insecurity of Solar Farms, By James Reed
On March 17, 2025, five solar farms in Victoria, Australia—located at Raywood, Goornong, Ledcourt, Stawell, and Moolort—were shut down by Energy Safe Victoria (ESV), the state's electrical safety regulator. The closures followed an inspection blitz prompted by a fire at the Raywood solar farm on March 11, 2025, which was linked to overgrown grass and vegetation beneath and around the solar panels. ESV identified this as a significant bushfire risk, especially given Victoria's dry conditions and recent history of severe bushfires. The solar farms, owned by Sungrow, a Chinese renewable energy company, were ordered to halt operations until the vegetation was mowed and brought under control. ESV's director of energy safety emphasised that solar farm operators have a legal duty to minimise bushfire risks, warning that failure to comply would result in enforcement action to protect people and property. This incident has reignited debates about the reliability and safety of renewable energy infrastructure, particularly solar, in Australia's fire-prone landscape.
The Case Against Solar Energy
While solar power is often championed as a clean, sustainable energy solution, incidents like this highlight several inherent flaws and risks that undermine its practicality and safety, especially in regions like Australia. Here's my case against solar energy based on this event and broader considerations:
1.Fire Hazard in Dry Climates
The Victorian solar farm shutdowns expose a critical vulnerability: solar installations can become fire hazards if not meticulously maintained. Overgrown vegetation, as seen at Raywood and the other sites, can ignite under the right conditions—hot weather, dry grass, and a spark from faulty equipment. Australia's climate, with its long, dry summers and frequent heatwaves, amplifies this risk. Unlike traditional power plants, which are typically centralised and built with firebreaks and industrial-grade safety systems, solar farms sprawl across rural landscapes, often near bushland, making them harder to monitor and maintain. This incident suggests that solar operators may not always prioritise or adequately fund the upkeep needed to prevent such risks, putting communities and ecosystems in danger.
2.Reliability and Maintenance Challenges
The fact that five solar farms—all under the same ownership—failed to manage basic vegetation control raises questions about the reliability of solar energy providers. If a company like Sungrow can't handle mowing grass, what does that say about their ability to maintain complex electrical systems over time? Solar panels degrade, inverters fail, and infrastructure requires constant oversight. In a rush to meet renewable energy targets, governments and companies may be cutting corners, deploying projects without ensuring long-term operational competence. This contrasts with fossil fuel or nuclear plants, where strict regulatory oversight and centralised management reduce the likelihood of such oversights.
3.Economic and Environmental Trade-Offs
Solar farms require vast tracts of land, often cleared of native vegetation or repurposed from agricultural use, which can disrupt local ecosystems and biodiversity. The Victorian case shows that even after installation, poor land management can lead to environmental harm—here, the potential for bushfires that could devastate wildlife and release stored carbon. Economically, the shutdowns mean lost energy production, which could strain Victoria's grid and force reliance on backup fossil fuel sources, ironically negating some of solar's touted carbon benefits. The cost of retrofitting or enforcing safety measures (like regular mowing or firebreaks) adds to the already high price tag of solar deployment, making it less competitive than proponents claim when hidden externalities like these are factored in.
4.Dependence on Foreign Ownership
Sungrow's ownership of these solar farms points to a broader issue: much of Australia's renewable energy infrastructure is controlled by foreign entities, often from China, which dominates the global solar market. This reliance introduces risks—geopolitical, economic, and operational. If foreign companies prioritise profit over safety, as social media postshave suggested in this case, local communities bear the consequences. Domestic energy sources like coal or gas, while not perfect, offer greater control and accountability, reducing the chance of mismanagement by distant corporations with misaligned priorities.
5.Incompatibility with Australia's Unique Conditions
Australia's landscape and climate—prone to drought, extreme heat, and bushfires—pose unique challenges that solar energy may not be equipped to handle sustainably. The Raywood fire and subsequent closures suggest that solar farms, as currently designed and managed, might exacerbate rather than mitigate environmental risks in such conditions. Traditional energy systems, built with decades of adaptation to local realities, don't face the same level of scrutiny for basic operational failures like this. Solar's "green" promise starts to fade when it can't coexist safely with the very environment it's meant to protect.
The Victorian solar farm shutdowns are a wake-up call. Solar energy, while appealing in theory, brings practical risks—fire hazards, maintenance failures, environmental trade-offs, foreign dependency, and poor fit for Australia's harsh conditions—that can outweigh its benefits. This isn't just about Sungrow forgetting to mow the grass; it's about a systemic fragility in the solar model that threatens safety and reliability. Alternatives like advanced nuclear or even cleaner fossil fuel technologies with carbon capture, might offer a more robust, less risky path to energy security without gambling on sprawling, vulnerable solar arrays in a fire-prone nation. Blind faith in renewables shouldn't override critical scrutiny of their real-world flaws.
"Victoria's energy safety regulator has ordered five solar farms to be switched off due to concerns over bushfire risks caused by uncontrolled vegetation.
Operators of the five solar farms owned by subsidiaries of Chinese-owned Sungrow Power Australia have been ordered to cease generating electricity from sites at Raywood and Goornong, near Bendigo, Stawell and Ledcourt in western Victoria, and Moolort, west of Castlemaine, after a blitz by Energy Safe Victoria in February.
A spokesperson said the inspections coincided with a fire at the Raywood solar farm, 28km north of Bendigo, which started in electrical equipment and spread to vegetation on the site.
"When Energy Safe officers attended the scene, they observed a lack of adequate vegetation management including insufficient fire breaks and vegetation that had grown too high,'' the regulator said.
The fire, which started in an inverter, sent black toxic smoke drifting over the small town of Raywood, causing authorities to issue warnings to residents and causing difficulty for crews trying to access the fire site.
Solar farm fire near Raywood in central Victoria. Picture: Supplied
Safety officers inspected two other Sungrow solar operations as part of the blitz and had concerns about vegetation management at another two sites.
The five solar farms were directed to stop operations on February 22. An Energy Safe spokesperson yesterday told The Australian that Sungrow had carried out remediation but the sites remain de-energised while the regulator assesses the work.
Energy Safe CEO Leanne Hughson said energy businesses must ensure their installations do not endanger the community.
"At the beginning of summer last year, we wrote to the operators of all solar farms in Victoria to ensure they were actively managing safety risks during the fire danger period," Ms Hughson said.
"Solar farm owners and operators have a legal duty to minimise bushfire risks and if they don't, we will take action to protect people and property."
She said safety officers were inspecting other renewable energy facilities in Victoria to ensure they complied with their maintenance and safety obligations.
The Raywood fire is not the first to ignite in a solar farm. An inverter in a shipping container burst into flames at Mannum east of Adelaide in 2024, causing $250,000 damage and injuring a contractor. CFS crews contained the fire to the shipping container and stopped it spreading to nearby panels.
A solar farm near Gulgong, north of Mudgee in the central-west region of NSW, was temporarily shut down after a grass fire in 2023.
Cohuna Solar Farm, a large operation near Horfield in northern Victoria, was ordered to temporarily stop generating power in December 2023 following a grassfire.
Farmers have previously voiced concerns about other solar farm operators failing to control overgrown grass and in some areas country fire volunteers have pledged to not fight fires in renewables installations and around transmission lines.
More than 20 country fire brigades in Victoria have told the state government they will only provide perimeter defence unless lives or the safety of the public are at risk.
The group, Firefighters Against Renewables Over Victoria, issued a statement in February saying it was opposed to areas it protects being designated renewable energy zones. "We give clear notice that no time will be donated to attend training on how to defend industrial infrastructure owned by primarily foreign interests for the benefits of renewable energy or mineral sand mining industries,'' it said.
The practice of grazing sheep under panels has been a much vaunted solution to keep the grass down but it is still not widely used."
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