Windorah's solar farm was supposed to track with the moving sun and generate 300,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year. Each dish can generate about 26 kilowatts of electricity, depending on the season, time of day and cloud cover, in theory. "The Windorah Solar farm will produce around 300,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually and reduce diesel consumption in the town by 100,000 litres a year," then-energy minister Stephen Robertson said. However, according to Ergon, it has generated just 942,000 kilowatts of power since 2009, a little over one-third its expectations. It has however offset "almost 250,000 litres of diesel since it was commissioned," Ergon says. But it has broken down again.

The Ergon technician should have Windorah running again on Friday. One collector dish at the plant, now run by Ergon, broke down "last Friday", two others broke down "the Friday before" and another "a bit before that." "They wouldn't re-start, a computer glitch," a Windorah person familiar with the solar plant's operation said. Another local source said it once sat idle for 12 months between 2012 and 2014 without ever operating. "It was a monument to tourists really," that source said, with a laugh.

One local said the collection dishes have not worked effectively since it opened in 2009. "When the government built it – and it was taken over by Ergon obviously - it was built as a test model basically," the person said. "So it doesn't assist us at all. It just keeps the cost of the diesel down. We don't get any direct power off the solar at all. It's been like that since it was built." "All it does is ramp the (diesel) generators down. But we still don't generate any power. We can't feed back into the grid. "It is of no benefit to the consumer, put it that way," the person said.

Ergon disagrees, not wanting its solar dawn to set. "The facility continues to generate electricity at the moment but not at full capacity," a spokesperson said. "A technician flew from Cairns yesterday and is undertaking repairs," he said. "It is expected most dishes will be operational by the end of the week," he said. "From time to time some of the dishes are out of service due to regular servicing requirements and the need to source parts."

Windorah is part of Barcoo Shire Council and chief executive officer Bob O'Brien said the solar energy had plenty of potential in outback Queensland, where many rooftops have solar panels. Customers are still taking advantage of the old 44-cents per kilowatt, solar feed-in tariff introduced by Labor in 2008 to encourage solar energy. However Mr O'Brien said the Windorah's solar plant now does not feature in Windorah's future planning and they did not contribute any money towards its maintenance. Mr O'Brien said he was unaware only one of the five collector dishes was operating and said on his two visits to the plant "two or three" of the five collector dishes were operating. He said the Windorah solar plant had "potential", but said Ergon's solar technology was now, not particularly sophisticated.

"But it's really got nothing to do with us, it's an Ergon plant," he said. Windorah may be setting, but solar energy may have a new dawn in outback Queensland. Solar eyes are now looking towards Barcaldine, where the private company, Elecnor, last month started construction of Queensland's largest solar farm, a $70 million, 25-megawatt solar plant built on 90 hectares just outside Barcaldine. The Barcaldine Regional Community Solar Farm is built close to a transmission substation and gas power station on the Capricorn Highway, five kilometres east of Barcaldine. It is supported by a $22.8 million grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and could provide electricity for 5300 homes around Central Queensland.

"To give you a sense, this is a 20 megawatt solar farm which is by far the biggest in Queensland to date," ARENA's chief executive, Ivor Frischknecht said. "And Australia-wide there's a total of about 240 megawatts either under construction or installed, so that gives you a sense of scale," he told the ABC in December 2015.