In a recent report the UK farming industry has been shown to be responsible for 9% of greenhouse gas emissions. Farming is currently looking to cut its emissions by over 3 million tonnes. Agriculture and farming has been challenged to reduce its power consumption and carbon footprint to help the UK meets its environmental obligations set out in the Kyoto Protocol.
Farms in Kent and the South East are being offered a way to address this challenge and gain much needed storage space from massively subsidised barns as part of a new energy generation scheme offered by South East Steel. The company in conjunction with partners Capital Steel and Lumicity are introducing the ’Feed-in Tariff’ (FIT) to farms in the South East with the offer of a 40 meter barn whose roof space will play host to solar panels.
The barns, known as ’Solar Barns’ are offered to farmers for just the investment of planning application and groundwork costs in exchange for leasing the roof space back to South East Steel. They then install the Solar Photovoltaic panels that generate energy which is sold back to the national grid. This form of power generation is one of the cleanest methods of power generation available today.
South East Steel’s commercial director, Lee Evans commented, ’Our scheme offers farmers the opportunity of a 40 metre steel barn with a 25 year structural guarantee for very little investment on their behalf. Dry, secure, safe storage space is always at a premium on farms and this scheme actually benefits the environment and is a strong incentive for farmers.’
Over 70% of land in the UK is farmed and the South East still represents a huge area of agricultural land occupied by private farms. Over 60 % of the land in the SE region is under agri-environment schemes, this represents an opportunity for farms to help reduce their own environmental footprint by taking up the scheme.
The solar panels are non-obtrusive and low maintenance. Farmers can benefit from a steel solar barn and either buy the whole system and gain from selling the power back to the grid themselves, or take the option of a massively subsidised barn and benefit from the increase storage space for virtually no cost.
Either way farmers can help contribute to one of the most natural forms of energy generation without increasing their carbon footprint.
