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Solar farms are getting bigger!
Back in 2016, the biggest solar farm in the Netherlands opened with a much-heralded power capacity of 6 megawatts - "enough electricity to supply all 1,700 households on the island". Fast forward to December 2019 and the biggest Dutch solar farm is now 103 megawatts, near Groningen in the north of the country. More than fifteen times the capacity! In fact it's more than the entire country's solar capacity in 2010.
It's bigger than anything in the UK, where one of the largest is this 70 MW farm, notably arranged around a former military runway (see picture). But just last month the UK Government approved plans for Cleve Hill Solar Farm, on the coast in Kent (South-East England): a phenomenal size, 350 megawatts, supplying enough power for up to 91,000 homes. On a sunny day, that could power the nearby town of Faversham a few times over.
Every country needs solar farms such as these. Of course, they're just one part of the energy supply, but an important part, and a growth industry too. A solar farm as big as a village is not just a news item, it's a crucial part of the world we want to build. An important question then is: What does the actual village, next door, think of the solar farm? What's their relationship with it - do they get to be involved in the planning of it? Or even, do they get to have some say in the running of it? After all, these things don't land from space - just like a local factory or a local farm, they're a part of our community fabric.
There's a "standard" way for communities to get involved. In the UK and the NL, solar farms need local planning permission to build, which is usually decided by local councils. They take account of objections or specific local considerations. And - partly driven by this - most companies carry out public consultations as part of their planning. You might also get protests of course. Sometimes there's even a local celebrity involved in the protest.
That's why it can be newsworthy when something gets approved with zero objections. That's what happened at the large (125 MW) Dorhout Mees solar farm near the Dutch village of Biddinghuizen. Bigger than anything currently in the UK or Netherlands. So how did they do it? Were local people attracted by the fact that they're putting it in an exercise park, with a running track looping through the solar panels? You have to admit, that's kind of intriguing - imagine going for a jog through this:
(Here's another eyecatching feature I like, from a different solar project: Vlagtwedde, is planting a 24-hectare blueberry farm as part of their solar farm development. Not just jobs - you also get blueberries!)
The big English project that we mentioned above (Cleve Hill) has been the subject of some protest and debate. (The planning documents are here.) There has been a local campaign against it, and concerns expressed by Greenpeace, RSPB and others about the effect on wildlife habitats. Remember that there's not just a climate crisis going on: there's also a biodiversity crisis. On the other hand, Friends of the Earth were broadly in favour of it. Their spokesperson Mike Childs pointed out that it makes a difference what's currently there at the site:
"No-one wants to see damage to local habitats, but this is not some lovely, untouched meadow.
"Changing the use of the site from intensive agriculture will reduce the high level of chemicals currently harming insects and wildlife - but we have to hold the developers to account."
The developers took account of concerns from these organisations and from locals. Indeed they had to, to get approved. The approved plan includes "56 hectares of specially managed habitat being set aside for overwintering birds, which has been designed in consultation with RSPB, Natural England and Kent Wildlife Trust". This area for protecting wildlife wasn't in the original plan: in the same spot, there were more solar panels. So at the cost of slightly less power production, the site now takes more care of the biodiversity in the region.
But there's a different way to do community. Rather than getting local opinion on board as an add-on, or to tweak an existing plan, what if solar farms were created by local communities themselves? Lots of us want to get involved in the renewable energy transition, and we all have good knowledge of our local areas. Why not?
The English village of Balcombe is an amazing story of this. They first hit the headlines as a village protesting against a company that wanted to set up fracking nearby. ("Fracking", or hydraulic fracturing, is a way of extracting fossil fuel from the ground, controversial for a few reasons.) Balcombe was the scene of the UK's biggest anti-fracking protests in 2013, and eventually the company backed down. The local community then transformed their rejection into a positive initiative by getting together as Repower Balcombe, a project to generate enough electricity for the whole village, entirely through community-owned locally-generated renewable energy. In 2015 they got planning permission to build a solar farm together.
Note that community-owned is the key here: local people get involved in the planning and decision making, and the enterprise is set up as a co-operative social enterprise - a type of business in which the fundamental rules of the company are designed so that it must be run for the good of the local community. They also issued community shares that were made available first to people living locally, before being available to the wider public.
Alice Bell is co-director at climate charity Possible, which was involved in setting up Repower Balcombe. We asked her about the success of such projects, and she told us:
"We know from projects all over the world that communities will be a lot more supportive of renewable energy projects built near them when they have been invited to take part in the development and can see the profits are being shared locally too. It’s an issue that usually comes up with wind, rather than solar, but as we see more and more larger solar farms being developed we can expect more backlash as people see these large scale projects coming in and changing the look of their local area and feel it’s being done to them, rather than with them.
"One of the problems with the UK energy system at the moment is that if you want to do wind or solar it’s pretty much go big or try some other country - so we have these incredible wind machines out at sea and the potential for more large-scale solar farms, but it’s very hard for everyday people to be involved in projects like these. Meanwhile, community energy groups that want to build smaller scale solar installations or onshore wind projects have seen all policy support gutted. I worry that this has the potential to weaken local public support for building clean energy - just when we need it most - and risk slowing down the transition to zero carbon we need.
"Solar power is incredibly popular - almost unbelievably so. There are few things that bring the British people together like solar. If we do things right we can have a solar revolution with people at the heart of it. If we do things wrong, all that love could be all too easily lost."
Balcombe's not the only example in the UK - big and small, there are lots of ways to do community involvement. A startup in the UK called Ripple Energy is an energy provider set up as a co-operative, meaning that its customers are also its owners - if you get your electricity from them, you literally also buy shares in the company. They have just opened their first wind farm; you don't need to live near it to be part of the action, you can switch to them just like you can switch any energy provider. This same approach can be used for solar farms too.
Lessons:
- Solar farm companies need to engage with local communities, and not just as a way to pre-empt complaints. Community engagement can lead to better design.
- In fact, maybe it would be best to have more community-owned solar. Local communities doing it for themselves.
- If you'd like more solar power, get involved in making it happen. If you're in the UK check if there's a "Local Plan" for your area and get involved in shaping it. Comment on planning proposals or even go to council planning meetings.