Last week the government’s Solar Power Strategy was published, following the release last October of a Solar Roadmap. It promotes balanced growth of the solar industry, with increased emphasis on large commercial rooftops alongside domestic roofs and large-scale ground-mounted solar farms.
Read the Solar Power Strategy
The strategy acknowledges the work of a number of contributing taskforces, including the working group on Land Use and Sustainability chaired by the NFU. The group helped develop the solar industry’s standards * IMAGE: Strutt and Parker
of best practice for large ground-mounted solar arrays, as well as forthcoming guidance on biodiversity management for solar farms.
The agricultural sector is also singled out for its “excellent progress” in seizing the opportunity to generate its own energy.
One of the most important developments is the proposed 20-fold extension of permitted development rights for solar roofs beyond the present size limit of 50 kilowatts (about 400 square metres). The new maximum size - a one-megawatt rooftop system - would occupy around 10,000 m2 or 100,000 square feet of roof area, meaning that virtually all farms and farmer-controlled businesses will be able to install solar on their buildings without the need for a formal planning application.
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)
DECC has ambitions to deploy 1000 megawatts (about 4 million solar modules) on government buildings and land, and to double the number of solar households from over 500,000 today to one million.
It will set out plans for the first 500 MW of government building installations later this year.
DECC will also encourage schools across Britain to install solar PV.
According to unofficial statistics, total UK solar capacity has already reached 4 gigawatts (4000 megawatts) – enough to supply over a million homes.
Forty per cent of this is now in the form of solar farms with roughly 300-400 of them across 30 counties or so. There could be as many as 10,000 solar farm roofs comprising another 300-400 MW. On this basis, it appears that farmers and growers are responsible for about half of Britain’s solar success story, supplying electricity equivalent to the household needs of Birmingham and Coventry combined.
“Farmers and growers evidently underpin much of the UK solar power sector,” said NFU chief renewable energy adviser Dr Jonathan Scurlock.
“The NFU strongly supports solar among a wide range of clean energy diversification opportunities, especially where farmers own their own renewable energy assets or otherwise benefit from new income streams."
"Sensitively-sited and well-managed solar farms continue to be acceptable but farmers should take a fresh look at the enhanced opportunities for building-mounted solar power.”
Further solar industry announcements on maximising the biodiversity potential of solar farms are expected at the end of April.