Britain’s Biggest Solar Array Connects To Grid And Supplies Business Electricity
The biggest solar energy farm in Britain has started to generate electricity and is now connected to the national grid and supplying business electricity.
The solar array at Howbery Business Park in Oxfordshire can generate as much as 682MWh a year of renewable electricity. It’s the first large scale solar array to be feed into the national grid.
There are 3,000 panels which make up the solar array and will help to save the businesses on the business park 350 tonnes of CO2 each year. It will also help to reduce business electricity prices for businesses on the park. Businesses on the Business Park will be able to get a direct electrical supply from the solar array.
The panels were supplied by Solarcentury and the company’s chief executive, Derry Newman, said just because the weather in the UK was generally overcast doesn’t mean it’s not suitable for solar power.
He said “Solar works on daylight, not necessarily [direct] sunlight and it gets light every day in Britain. Of course it generates more on a very bright day than a dull day. If you average over the year, the amount of cumulative daylight, energy per square metre, is very well known and is very predictable. Over the life of the system, the amount of energy produced is very predictable”.
There are several more solar projects due to be connected to the national grid next month and developed by Solarcentury. However, after the review of the Feed-In Tariffs the rates paid to solar installations dropped by over 70%. This means that these large scale solar arrays may be the first and last we see in the UK for a number of years.
Mr Newman said that the changes to the Feed-In Tariff scheme meant that most investors had decided not to invest in solar developments.
He said “There were probably many hundreds lined up for development across the country. They’re pretty much all cancelled now because of the fast track review. This type of installation will be a relative rarity for a few years”.
However, Mr Newman thinks that investors will return in the near future. He said in just a few years the amount of subsidy needed for solar will go down because the price of materials used for solar panels is going down. He said once this happens investors will come back as investments become more attractive.