The Great Australian Squeeze

Fruit growers are an integral part of the Solar Panel Options customer base, and farmers

in rural Australia provide an essential service to Australia’s food bowl. In the town of

Barham in southern New South Wales, the Williamson family has developed their land to produce some of the best citrus in the country. Their Kurnung citrus business developed over the years and eventually turned into The Great Australian Squeeze. With on-farm processing and bottling, they produce up to 2000 litres of juice per hour.

As the business grew, so did their electricity bills, and Phillip and Sandra chose to move forward with solar in mid-2016. At that point, we installed a 44kW system on their shed, which housed their pumping meters and cool rooms. This was a good starting point – the business was going through a few transitions and there would be more opportunities to add solar at other sites as their locations became more certain.

The Williamsons were happy with their first system, and in late 2017, upon acquiring a larger site with much larger consumption, they looked to move closer towards the goal of producing their own electricity. So in August 2019, they had Solar Panel Options install two 100kW systems on the new site. The pressing and bottling plant usage was connected to 100kW, and their cool rooms were linked to the secondary 100kW system. Over two sites, they now have a total of 681 panels and 244kWs.

The Great Australian Squeeze continues to develop, recently looking to expand to Asia and continuing to fill up the shelves of Woolworths stores across the country. In an industry where heavy electricity consumption is standard, having solar as a safeguard provides great peace of mind to The Williamsons.