THE Utopia of a vibrant renewable energy sector coexisting with agriculture and creating a more sustainable future while delivering prosperity to rural Australia is a compelling narrative, but more clarity is needed before communities embrace the concept.
At present there are a number of recurrent concerns surrounding new renewable projects, ranging from inappropriate locations to worries surrounding decommissioning costs and land rehabilitation through to community feelings that the benefits from the projects will generally flow outside the local area.
All of the issues will feel eerily familiar to those that followed debate surrounding mining in farming land over the past 20 years.
Rules and regulations that were not fit for purpose and did not provide farmers and their local communities with the safeguards they desired beleaguered relations between miners and farmers in the early days of coexistence.
Now, however, policies have been developed and there is a clear pathway for farmers to identify issues and protest at things they do not think should proceed.
It means farmers dealing with mining developments can be reassured there are more checks and balances than are present in the nascent renewables space.
The good news for the renewables sector is that there is the chance to learn from the mistakes of mining.
Mining officials have heard loud and clear that communities do not want to be forced into deals without full transparency.
The renewables sector would be well advised to follow a similar path and do away with plans to get landholders to sign up via non-disclosure agreements.
There also needs to be true engagement with landholders, at present issues surrounding matters such as the bungling of the location of transmission lines has been a huge own goal from a sector looking to build up good will in the community, with a strong feeling the community is being talked at, rather than listened to.
This does not need to happen, as one of the key advantages renewables have over mining is that there is scope for flexibility in the exact location of projects.
Access to the power grid is critical but there can be concessions made in terms of locating solar panels or wind turbine in areas that don't disrupt ongoing farm operations.
Listening to local knowledge and experience regarding locations will not only help farmers continue to run their businesses with as little disruption as possible but could also minimise disruptions to amenity, which is one of the big concerns of communities.
There has been a lot of negative press about renewable energy but there are also exciting opportunities.
The government has committed to long term investment in the space and rural Australia, with an abundance of sun, wind and space is ideally positioned to pick up on this.
What rural communities have said across the board, however, is that they want to see benefits remain in the community, rather than just providing a source of cheap power for the cities.
Local jobs will be a good start but working out ways that communities could use some of the power generated for energy intensive agricultural value adding enterprises, such as intensive agriculture and grain and hay processing perhaps in 'behind the meter' arrangements could create meaningful change for impacted communities.
Another of the lessons learnt from the mining boom was that rural regions will no longer be satisfied with a new set of football jumpers or a roll of shadecloth over the kinder playground, they want meaningful investment from the renewable businesses in their region.
There are a lot of mutually beneficial outcomes from creating a viable renewables sector in rural Australia, it will come down to the businesses looking to set up as to whether they are up to the challenge of delivering on the promise.