Cornwall council approves solar farm
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Planning permission has been granted for the UK’s first purpose-built solar farm, a decision that could give the green light for a wave of commercial solar-power developments across the country.
Located on the south facing site of the former Wheal Jane tin mine near Truro in Cornwall, the £4m 1.3MW solar farm will house around 6,000 individual panels, each measuring 1.8m x 1m and laid out on galvanised steel fixed tilt frames. The grid connection is already in place, thanks to the power line from which the old mill drew its energy.
The company behind the project is 35 Degrees - a venture set up to promote, build and manage 100MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) plant through a series of individually financed projects.
The firm drew on the expertise of engineering and environmental consultancy Wardell Armstrong to successfully secure planning permission from the Cornwall council for the new solar farm.
The 12-month process involved the consultancy in pre-consultation, screening and scoping, feasibility including specific studies on glint, glare and ecology, a full environmental impact assessment, planning submission and post submission consultation.
The stimulus for 35 Degrees to develop the solar farm has come from the feed-in tariff (FiT), a new energy policy mechanism that came into force in April 2010.
Under FiT, businesses and individuals producing ’green’ electricity receive a generation tariff (paid by an electricity company) for everything they generate, plus an export tariff for everything they feed back to the grid - as high as 41.3p/kWh and 3p/kWh respectively in the case of small-scale solar PV.
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Readers' comments (11)
Neil | 19 Oct 2010 6:22 pm
Fantastic!!! Bring it on boys. Let's get even more of these installed around the country and then we can begin exporting electricity 'Made in Britain' for once!!! :-)
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Paul | 20 Oct 2010 9:29 am
They are redeveloping the mine site as a business park so why are they placing the solar panels on the ground and not on buildings or structures over parking areas, etc.?
The pictures on their website show the panels in meadowland. Now this just may be some ad-man’s attempt to tug at our environmental heartstrings but it does the opposite for me.
Granted in this case as it is an old mine site the land is probably zoned for industry.
However this is the thin end of the wedge as I read that many farmers in Cornwall and the south of England are considering ground mounted solar. How are they getting planning permission to install industrial scale facilities on agricultural land? If they want to install PV why can’t they put it on their farm buildings?
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Anonymous | 20 Oct 2010 4:13 pm
Will this site ever repay its initial carbon footprint to build, manufacture and install? 1.3MW is a miniscule amount of electricity and I assume this is maximum output in perfect conditions? What is the life expectancy and operating costs of such a site?
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Paul | 20 Oct 2010 4:31 pm
1.3 megawatts from 10,800 square metres of PV cells made by what is an extremely polluting manufacturing process! Frankly, it's a joke! Does the Government ever look at the real environmental cost of so called green energy? Of course Industry won't care about the cost to our world, they are only interested in returns but the Government ought to make a stand on this and not be pushed into encouraging dubious "greenery" by the E.U.
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Anonymous | 20 Oct 2010 4:36 pm
The life expectancy of a PV module is around 25 years, they will pay back the energy to manufacture in around 18 months to 2 years. The maintenance is not great as there are no moving parts, its all solid state electronics. The power electronics in the inverters will probably last 10-15 years.
Compared to the the 1000+ year legacy of the nuclear power station it's a bargain. Has anybody totted up an accurate decommissioning bill yet?
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Ian Howitt | 20 Oct 2010 4:56 pm
Presumably we can switch off conventional thermal power stations during the day and only run them at night.
What a farce
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peter cox | 20 Oct 2010 5:12 pm
In reply to Paul, we farmers are putting PV on farm buildings where possible, but an ex tin mine seems ideal. It is possible to arrange grazing stock around arrays of PV panels and so the land can still be used for agriculture. Planning permission for farm roofs takes time for the meantime, and is needed, unlike domestic apparatus and financing is not easy to come by; the banks are very interested but look for existing earnings and existing capital cover as well rather than just the income from PV. An Oxfordshire farm has possibly the largest PV roof in agriculture so far and both a neighbour and ourselves, seperately have meetings next week with a potential supplier. There is a growing swell of farmers gaining interest and knowledge in the subject.
A Buckinghamshire ex airfield and industrial site is in the throes of installation too.
Grid connections with large scale production are potentially costly and I am told can take a considerable amount of time and patience to obtain.
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VS | 21 Oct 2010 2:48 am
Anonymous | 20 Oct 2010 4:36 pm
The life expectancy of a PV module is around 25 years, they will pay back the energy to manufacture in around 18 months to 2 years....
-Why do you think so?
The life time for electronic components usually 10 years max...
It's pity, but nobody can guarantee 25 years...
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Anonymous | 22 Oct 2010 2:42 pm
What would be the cost of covering the whole south facing side of a roof of an Eternit fibre cement roofed farm building with these solar panels, if the south facing pitched roof measures 30feet from eaves to apex, and 100 feet front to back?
The location is on the west coast of Wales. How resistant are these materials to a very saline atmosphere and how well will the panels cope with stormy weather , with winds up to 90 mph ?
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Anonymous | 22 Oct 2010 3:01 pm
Presumably we can switch off conventional thermal power stations during the day and only run them at night.
Some thermal (gas) power stations already get turned off at night. Most people are asleep at night so don't use as much electricity, so not as much is needed
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