eli5 Why is there no giant solar farm in Australia?

Question

My cursory Google says that it’s not impossible. So why?

EDIT: Answer seems to be that (politics aside) practically it’s cost prohibitive and the tech can’t transfer the energy over the distance required.

In: 609

Answer 1

Victoria is planning a transmission line to bring electricity from the northwest part of the state to Melbourne. The very expensive line will disrupt farming on some of the best soil in the state (like most of Australia, most of the soil is crap). There will be significant line loss. Personally, I think distributed solar, like lots of rooftop solar is a much better solution.

Another solution I think is better is to put solar panels over irrigation channels. This doesn’t take land out of production and the shade from the panels will reduce evaporation, preserving the water resource.