ADAS partners with global Solar PV expert, Enfinity, to build biggest solar parks in the UK
Leading UK agricultural and environmental consultancy, ADAS, has teamed up with international solar photovoltaic (PV) experts, Enfinity, to begin work scoping sites and installing what will be, once built, the UK’s biggest solar energy parks. These installations will provide a real opportunity for farmers and land owners to secure a 25 year revenue stream.
ADAS’ role is to identify suitable sites for solar power to be installed using a bespoke GIS screening tool. ADAS will initially search for suitable sites in Southern England and South Wales. Suitable sites need to be flat, have good electricity connectivity and minimal visual impact.
Over the last 6 months the project has identified 12 potential sites in these regions that would be suitable for solar park development, offering landowners a 25 year land lease agreement that will provide them with a long term revenue stream.
Jon Abbatt, principal consultant at ADAS is leading the project: "We have already started the planning permission process on four of the sites that we have indentified, which after working closely with the relevant planning authorities we hope to have approved in the first half of 2011. Our plan is develop 50MW of solar parks next year.
"ADAS needed a reliable development partner for this project. We chose Enfinity because of their international reputation and dedication to work completion – on time and on budget – so that UK farmers and the public can be reassured that we have a tried and trusted developer, with international experience and expertise, working to complete these important projects that are quite new to the UK market.
"To date Enfinity have installed PV arrays that are currently producing 200 Megawattspeak of electricity at sites across the world. It also currently has several hundred more megawatts under development.
Jon Abbatt continued: "At a time when all sectors of the UK economy are ’tightening belts’ after the global banking crisis such projects offer farmers, land owners and land managers a new and interesting way of creating a reliable revenue stream, creating emission free electricity – and one which saves them money and reduces carbon at the same time. It’s a ’win, win’ provided they are developed in a sensitive manner at appropriate sites.
"While ADAS’s primary focus is to identify field based solar opportunities, we have also been working with farmers on roof based PV systems for agricultural buildings. grain stores, poultry sheds and cattle stores that can be converted into sustainable solar hubs which relative ease. As long as they can be connected to the grid we can help landowners covert their farm buildings.
"Field PV systems are more beneficial as they offer a lot greater return from solar panels because we can spread them across very large areas and we are not constrained to roof space, in this case all of the fields we are developing are between 25 and 30 acres."
