82 | CONTRACTING Lightyears Solar Solar farms recognised at industry awards Co-founder and managing director Matt Shanks. Photo: Rebecca Kempton Photography. After six years bringing community-scale solar farms to life, Lightyears Solar has been recognised as a trail blazer in the industry. The company picked up the Utility Scale Solar Trailblazer Award at this year’s SEANZ Aotearoa Industry Awards. Judges acknowledged the company’s Waingawa Solar Farm project in the Wairarapa that generates enough electricity to power approximately 1130 homes annually. Construction of the farm involved more than a dozen local contractors. The farm supplies 75 per cent of the electricity going through the local substation and at times has met 100 per cent of that local power need. The company was also joint winner of the Best Medium Business at the SEANZ Aotearoa Industry Awards, and was a finalist in the Social Procurement category at this year’s Energy Excellence Awards and in the Infrastructure De-carbonisation category in the Building Nations 2025 Impact Awards. Co-founder and managing director Matt Shanks says it was a thrill to receive the recognition at the SEANZ awards. “Innovation and continuous improvement is something we strive for in all facets of our work as we bring more renewable energy to the country, and we’re extremely proud of our awards.” Lightyears Solar was formed in 2019 when Matt and school friend, Sean Tobin, identified an untapped space for solar energy production in New Zealand. Countries around the world already have advanced solar production, and Matt himself has worked on projects in the Pacific Islands and in Southeast Asia. “We’re actually the last country in the OECD to deploy solar at scale. It’s well-deployed overseas,” Matt tells Business Central. “We looked at the cost and thought it could work in New Zealand. “It’s very mature technology worldwide and we are really just at the start of deploying it in New Zealand.” While the large gentailers are building large-scale solar farms, no-one was building T T Rosa Watson community-scale farms. Lightyears’ first farm was built at Waiuku and commissioned in 2023, supplying the Counties Energy network. With around 4,000 solar panels, it is also a mixed land-use site with pigs and other small livestock grazing the solar paddocks, showcasing the agrivoltaic design of Lightyears’ farms that allow productive agriculture to continue alongside solar generation. Today, Lightyears has a team of 17 staff and has commissioned five solar farms across the country, usually on five to 15 acres, with more under construction. Matt says they receive phone calls every week from landowners enquiring about whether their property would be a suitable site. “It tends to be farmers contacting us looking for more productive land use.” Solar provides a resilient power supply for industry – an example being the Talleys factory at Ashburton that is the largest consumer of electricity in the Electricity Ashburton network. Lightyears has built a solar farm on six acres of land adjacent to the factory, with a capacity of 4MW. “We think it’s a good outcome rather than relying on somewhere else. It provides a lot of resilience in terms of energy supply,” says Matt. “It could be a future where we end up with communities like Ashburton completely self-sufficient in terms of electricity supply.” The Waingawa Solar Farm in the Wairarapa sits on six hectares with around 8000 panels and 4.7MW capacity. The landowners continue to graze sheep on the site. For each construction, the firm uses up to 12 local contractors, particularly in civil construction, making a huge contribution to the local community. Construction is underway on a farm in North Canterbury and more projects are in the pipeline, Matt says. With many sites in Canterbury, a full-time staff member has been employed in the region, with plans to expand. It can take a couple of years to get a site ready to start construction, working through regulations and obtaining consents. The government is working with the industry to make the process easier, Matt says. He says solar farms will be key to meeting the country’s future energy demand. “The energy demand of the country is growing as we continue to electrify transport and electrify boilers for industry.” Residential homes are also driving demand, moving more towards electric heating. Matt says solar farms have little impact on the landscape, able to be screened out by planting. “Most people won’t know there’s even one there.” It brings huge benefits to the landowners, offering farmers a new and stable revenue stream while preserving the land’s agricultural value and to the local community, delivering reliable, clean energy to communities that often experience energy poverty or unreliable grid access and providing employment during construction, says Matt. Self-cleaning design Abrasion resistant Higher Load Superior TC ÖğĵŅŢýù ~© ŅĵųŮğŅĽ ĒŅŢ %ýŦýDž )ĽƋğŢŅĽĻýĽŮŦ TALK TO US ABOUT YOUR NEXT EARTHMOVING OR CIVIL PROJECT. Scott’s Ag Contracting Ltd Earthmoving & Civil Division 06 379 8146 office@scottsagcontracting.co.nz scottsag.co.nz Also providing services in: Agricultural Contracting & Transport - Stock Feed Fertiliser Spreading - Stock Transport
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