Huge solar farm for Hampshire

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ONE of the UK’s largest solar panel farms is taking shape behind the hedge rows of a New Forest estate famed for its Walkers crisps potatoes.
Nearly 19,000 solar panels are will be installed on 30-acres of land on the Cadland Estate at Fawley over the next month.

The five megawatt solar panel farm, the size of 18 football pitches, will harness the sun’s rays to generate enough electricity to power 1,000 homes.
Energy firm Anesco has struck a deal with the estate to rent land from the Cadland estate to build and operate the solar farm over the next 25 years.

Anesco has started erecting nine kilometres of frames to support the grid of solar panels. The construction project has created around local 30 jobs.
Energy generated by the solar panels will be fed back into the national grid under the Government’s Feed in Tariff scheme, which makes payments for energy produced through renewable sources.

The Cadland Estate is currently used for farming wheat, maize and some livestock. The Estate is also used for potato farming and supplies leading food manufacturers such as Walkers crisps.

Cadland Estate landowner Aldred Drummond said: “It has been a pleasure working with Anesco on this ground-breaking project. As we move forward with a combination of innovative technologies and ways of working, we will be creating a road map for sustainable farming.”

Adrian Pike, chief executive officer of Reading based Anesco, said it was a “landmark project” for his firm and though to be the largest solar farm in Hampshire.
He said: “Farming, which I know well having grown up on a farm myself, is an industry which can greatly benefit from a broad range of renewable technologies. Helping to improve the sustainability of farming, from an energy consumption point of view, is vital for the future of the industry and is something that many operators and landowners are now considering.”

He added: “This project is not only helping to reduce emissions but is generating green energy for the local area as well as creating jobs and long term revenue streams.”

The project has been backed by SSE, which will but the electricity generated.
SSE financial director Gregor Alexander said: “We’re delighted to be working with Anesco to develop one of the largest solar fields in the country. SSE is the UK’s largest generator of renewable energy and we fully support projects such as this.”

The best thing to come out of the Solar PV industry

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Those who follow this blog may have noticed the lack of updates in recent weeks..

Being involved in, and passionate about the UK Solar PV industry, there have been many things to update about, especially in the busy times of November 2011 and to a lesser extent March 2012. However more recently there has been a lot less activity in the UK Solar market. So little in fact that many businesses involved in this sector have either had to quickly diversify, take a break, or make the difficult decision to completely close their doors for business.

There are however some real solar success stories out there – One of the best things to come out of the Solar PV industry so far has to be The solar bikini  :

The solar bikini is covered with 1 x 4-inch (25.4 x 101.6 mm) flexible PV cells.  These cells are precision hand-stitched onto the base material using conductive thread. Photon bombardment sends the electrons down to a 5V DC terminator, to a ‘female’ USB connector for device attachment.

The output of the solar bikini is comparable to a laptop’s USB port, as is the time it takes to charge an MP3 player or mobile phone – You could also power a small lava lamp with this revolutionary new technology.

Renewable energy seemed to offer so much promise and opportunity to so many people, both the people running the new businesses in this sector, and the thousands of workers who trained up to look forward to long careers working in the growing solar PV industry.

The solar bikini however brings endless happiness to so many. It is practical, lightweight, fun, low cost (around £1,000), and when you wear it you look and feel fantastic…
Most importantly it will never let you down (as long as the sun is shining) and you can charge your iPhone while you sunbathe.

Working in the UK solar industry has not turned out to be such an attractive proposition. The complete chaos, cuts and confusion delivered by the UK government means that UK Solar is currently a highly challenging market to operate a successful business in – Those who have survived the cuts are diversifying into other areas of micro-generation and energy saving such as Biomass, Small Wind, Rainwater harvesting, Insulation, or Solar Thermal.

Micro-generation undoubtedly has a bright future in the UK as it will become more important as the 2020 deadlines for carbon emissions approach. However the recent Solar PV fiasco has done nothing to help the credibility or chances of success for this sector. Hopefully the current policies in effect will enable the industry to grow and develop at a more realistic pace… Whatever happens it will be interesting to observe how things work out.

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You can also view previous articles on our blog archive and most popular post section below!