Last month Westlands water District, in which two-fifths of Mr Errotabere's land lies, learnt that it would get no water from the federal canal this year.

Westlands sits in a major transmission corridor, and existing capacity in the area could realistically accommodate up to 600 megawatts from the project, according to Mr.Dowds.

For Westlands farmers, the promise of the solar project is not clean electricity, but the additional water allocations they will get if some land is no longer used for farming.