Not necessarily! A single offshore wind turbine will generate almost the same amount of energy as the whole of “Pelham Springs Solar Farm”

It’s therefore no surprise that the Government’s “Build Back Greener” strategy makes NO MENTION OF SOLAR.

We agree that Solar can make a contribution to the UK’s “net zero” target. However, solar farms do not need to be built in the countryside.

According to BRE (a highly regarded research body) there are 250,000 hectares of south facing commercial roof space in the UK which, if utilised, could provide approximately 50% of the UK’s electricity demand. Sainsbury’s Waltham Point Distribution Centre is a good example of this strategy in action. In Germany more than half of solar PV deployment is on commercial roofs – why can’t this be achieved here?

In addition, there are lots of examples of suitable solar farm sites on disused airfields (such as Gosfield Airfield near Braintree). Solar carports are another feasible alternative to the use of greenfield land.  According to BRE, the car park layout that lends itself most favourably to low-cost solar carport installation is long, double rows of car parking adjacent to high energy users. Hospitals, airports, retail parks and large commercial premises often present such layouts.  Uttlesford should promote the use of the huge amount of carparking space adjacent to Stansted Airport for solar carport installation. 

There is a huge opportunity to generate solar power on land owned by Stansted Airport.  In July 2020, Edmonton International Airport in Canada announced that it plans to build the world’s largest airport-based solar panel farm.  With more than 300,000 panels, it will turn the airport into a completely renewable entity and benefit the local community. In the US, Washington Dulles International Airport is in the process of implementing 1,200 acres of solar panels to create a fully functioning solar farm by 2023.  It will be able to power 25,000 homes in the local area.  Indianapolis International Airport has 76,000 solar panels across 151 acres creating more than 31 million kW-hours of electricity annually.  Surely, there are equivalent opportunities at Stansted airport.

What does the government say about solar farm development?

Speaking in 2013, Greg Baker (then Minister for Energy and Climate Change) made it crystal clear that brownfield land should always be preferred for larger solar farms and that where solar farms are not on brownfield land, they must be on LOW GRADE agricultural land.

In 2015 Eric Pickles (then MP for Brentwood and Ongar and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) was also clear that “meeting our energy goals should not be used to justify the wrong development in the wrong location and this includes the unnecessary use of high quality agricultural land.  Protecting the global environment is not an excuse to trash the local environment”.

Lastly, note that Boris Johnson’s “Build Back Greener” strategy talks about Offshore Wind power (with a target of quadruple offshore wind capacity by 2030) and large-scale nuclear as a reliable source of low-carbon electricity (whilst also looking to the future of nuclear power in the UK through further investment in Small Modular Reactors and Advanced Modular Reactors). There is no mention of industrial scale solar farms.

Why has Battles Farm been identified
as a suitable site for a solar farm?

For the reasons that we give above, we don’t think that it is suitable!  However, the site is close to Pelham substation which means that it will be cheap to connect the solar farm to the National Grid.  But, you don’t need to build solar farms near substations – it is possible to connect to the grid at many points on the high voltage network.  This would include, for example, much of the land that runs beside the M11 motorway.