Developers behind plans for one of Britain’s biggest solar parks in Newark and Sherwood have held a series of tours at a nearby solar farm for residents to raise concerns and learn about how they work.
The tours were organised by Elements Green, developers for the Great North Road solar park which would see around 1.5m panels built on farmland surrounding villages to the north of Newark, capable of producing enough energy to power 400,000 homes.
It comes after only 16% of residents backed the plans during a first round of public consultation earlier this year, with many expressing confusion and opposition to the plans and how it could affect the rural communities in which they live.
The overall Great North Road project would be made up of a number of smaller solar farm sites, totaling around 7,000 acres, forming a loop which would feed into the National Grid.
The tour was led by Elements Green executive chairman Mark Turner, and head of UK operations Mark Noone, who explained how solar farms work and answered questions about plans for the Great North Road solar park.
Participants met at Hall Farm in Weston before being taken by minibus to a nearby operational solar farm within the district.
The solar farm we toured has been in operation since 2015, is situated across a 60 acre site, and is home to 55,000 panels capable of producing 250 watts each.
25 panels are strung together to form a set, with 25 sets attached to a single combiner box. Each combiner box then connects to a central converter and transformer, which converts electricity produced from DC into AC and increases the voltage for use on the National Grid.
It was explained that in the nine years since this solar farm’s construction, solar technology has advanced significantly to the point where panels of the same size are now able to produce upwards of 450 watts each.
It was argued that this improvement in technology meant that the Great North Road project could increase the density of power produced from sites of the same size.
A visitor on the tour questioned why the same solar panels could not be placed on existing roof tops instead of sitting on agricultural land.
Mark Turner explained that the weight of the panels, roughly 15kg each, meant they were structurally too heavy for many existing buildings and were best suited to open ground.
The panels are also fixed into place using steel supports, driven into the ground without concrete supports. The aim of this is so that at the end of a farm’s 40 year life span, the supports can simply be removed, recycled and the land returned to its original use.
Developers also faced questions on biodiversity and the impact that plans could have on national food production.
It was stated that the majority of land being looked at for the solar park plans is not of a high quality. The farm we were visiting for example has rocky soil making it difficult to grow and farm food, and which the land owner turned over to pasture years before solar farm approval was granted.
Currently the solar farm is home to between 60 and 100 sheep and has been grazed since its inception as a form of site management.
Mark Noone explained that the Great North Road solar park would adopt similar methods, with a proportion of its sites used for sheep grazing.
At the same time, other sites would be planted as wildflower meadows which would also act as a natural sponge during periods of heavy rain and allay fears about an increased flooding risk caused by development — this wildflower meadow would periodically be mowed and collected to make straw.
They added that the company were exploring ways to increase biodiversity through planting schemes as a form of wildlife screening around the boundaries of solar sites.
The developers also argued that concerns about food security could be tackled by addressing the estimated 9.5m tonnes of food waste produced in the UK each year.
It was also stated that for the government to achieve its target of net-zero by 2050, the amount of ground-mounted solar panels needed would only account for around 0.3% of UK land area and would not drastically impact food production.
Mr Noone said that the Great North Road solar park would be good for employment in the area, with the creation of around 60 to 70 jobs within the district and local contractors used during the construction phase.
He added that Elements Green would be investing in affected communities by launching a scheme to provide around £1m of funding per year to support projects important to residents and offset the impact of solar farm construction.
Did you attend one of the tours? What are your thoughts on the plans? Let us know in the comments below.
