A major new solar project for Warrington Borough Council is claimed to be the most advanced in the country, incorporating several UK-first technologies.
Built in partnership with Gridserve across two sites at York and Hull, the £62.34m project will produce enough green electricity to power around 18,000 homes. The York site – where work will begin shortly – will consist of a 34.7MWp hybrid solar farm plus a 27MW battery storage system, the largest at any UK solar facility. Electricity from the York farm will be sold on the open market initially, and the council claims that other local authorities have expressed interest in buying this power.
A 25.7MWp solar farm at Hull will follow in a later phase, supplying Warrington Borough Council itself with 100 per cent green electricity and cutting its bills by up to £2m a year. There are also plans for battery storage at the Hull site. According to the developers, they will be the two largest solar farms built in Great Britain since 2016.
“This deal is good news for Warrington residents and good news for the environment,” said Cllr Russ Bowden,leader of Warrington Borough Council. “The solar farms will secure our energy supply, give us control over our energy prices, contribute to reducing fuel poverty and generate an estimated operating surplus of £150m over 30 years that can be invested back into the most important frontline services.”
According to Gridserve, the solar farms will be the first in the UK to use bifacial solar panels, generating energy from both sides. They will also be the first large-scale UK projects that will use trackers to follow the sun, maximising generation and mitigating against price volatility over the course of the day. Once operational, both sites will also be connected to ‘Electric Forecourts’ where up to 24 EVs will be able to charge simultaneously.
“Warrington is leading the way in showing councils how solar and battery storage can help generate sustainable income to deliver vital public services, meet climate targets with clean energy, and support a low carbon economy,” said Toddington Harper, founder and CEO of Gridserve.
“These will be the most advanced solar farms in the UK – and quite possibly the world – ushering in a new era of subsidy-free, truly sustainable energy. We’ve completely rethought the solar model, looking in detail at how to maximise value at every step, and these projects will also pioneer the use of cutting-edge technologies that serve the grid.”
The York facility is being built on 198 acres of low-grade agricultural land at Boscar Grange, near Easingwold, and it is expected to be operational by October 2019. Construction of the Hull solar farm, on 131 acres of low-grade agricultural land near Bilton, will follow.
We really shouldn’t allow solar panels on agricultural land, even low grade agricultural land. The land underneath should be used for something else as well such as industrial buildings or car parks. Britain is too small to waste land in this way. I presume agricultural land is used because it is the lowest cost option.
I wrote to the energy secretary years ago for an idea of mine to put P V panels on all houses and factories facing south. You connect them all together towards putting the electricity generated onto the grid. I got the reply that they weren’t interested in a micro generation system. This system would produce all of the electricity required for the whole city wherever it was implemented. It shows these people don’t have a clue as to what could be done. No land would be used where it is used for farming in this case, and it would be low cost to install street by street as required. It would be installed free of charge to the house owners. No vision these politicians !
Two questions please:
1. How many kWh are stored in the 27 MW battery, and
2. Is the electricity subsidised, if so how much.
My understanding of bifacial solar-voltaic panels is that they rely (for about 30% of their power on light reflected from a white (concrete) background (not shaded by the panels themselves) – and presumably this will constrain what benefit that can be obtained from tracking.
I think that the phrase “supplying Warrington Borough Council itself with 100 per cent green electricity” – almost implies that Warrington will be a 100% “green” electric; but I do not believe that to be the case as (according to Wikipedia) it has a population of 201,000 and the figures in the article mention 18,000 homes (which would imply many households consisting of 12 people).
I would like to ask what storage capacity the batteries have; it must be limited as, otherwise, it could be used, rather than the tracking, for “mitigating against price volatility” – though that term could cover a multitude of sins (from frequency matching, peak lopping or [daytime] load following).