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Farming solar energy

There is enough sunshine to grow grapes for wine in Cornwall, so why not harvest solar electricity as well? Independent renewable energy generator and supplier Ecotricity is planning dozens of large grid-linked photovoltaic ‘solar farms’ in the South West and there are plans for ‘Sun farms’ in Cornwall and the Scilly Isles.

Ecotricity aims to start with a 25-acre, 5 MW solar farm, possibly near its HQ in Stroud, but by 2020 it plans to have 500 MW of PV arrays, all over the south of the country. Meanwhile Benbole Energy Farm, working with the Penzance- based Renewable Energy Cooperative, is planning a 15-acre Sun Farm near St Kew/St Mabyn in North Cornwall. It’s seen as part of an eventual £40 m 20 MW network of 10 Sun Farms in Cornwall and the Scilly Isles.

Ecotricity say that solar farms would not be blight on the landscape, arguing that they would be less obtrusive than wind turbines, or rows of polytunnels used to grow fruit and vegetables. Dale Vince, the company’s founder, told The Times (14/5/10): ‘They won’t stand more than 2 metres (6.5 ft) tall so you won’t see them if you look across the landscape because they will be obscured by hedgerows. You would see them if you were standing on a hill but the visual impact is very minor compared with wind arrays.’ But, he said that some might have solar panels and turbines in the same fields. ‘Solar panels and wind turbines complement each other well because in summer the winds are lighter but there is more sunlight, with the opposite in winter.’

The farms will cost £15–20 m each but Ecotricity will receive index-linked income for 25 years from the feed-in tariff, which starts at 29p/kWh, and should yield a return of at least 8% a year. That’s the main reason why large scale PV solar is now being seen as economically viable in the UK. But PV costs are also falling as new cells emerge and the market for them builds, so we are likely to see more in future.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England said that it would be better to place banks of solar panels on factory and warehouse roofs and above car parks. But it felt that some farms in the countryside could be acceptable, depending on the quality of the landscape.

PV solar is of course also widely touted as an option for domestic roof tops, and the ‘Clean Energy Cashback’ Feed In Tariff should stimulate that significantly: npower has already reported an 80% rise in PV inquiries and consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers have suggested that the rate of UK installation of solar PV panels will increase five-fold this year because of the feed-in tariff.

However, solar water heating is a much cheaper and already very widespread option in the UK. Hopefully that will get supported strongly by the governments proposed new Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which should come into force next April. In its RHI consultation submission YouGen, a social enterprise lobby group for self-generation, said solar heating should be given top priority. That would make a lot of sense.

The UK may not be the obvious place to develop solar, but we do get enough annual insolation to make a significant contribution to meeting heat and power needs.

For more on renewable-energy developments and policy, visit www.natta-renew.org.

Posted by Dave Elliott on July 3, 2010 2:19 PM | Permalink