Britain’s largest solar farm seeks consent for development in Kent

The largest solar farm to be located in Britain has been deemed capable of generating clean electricity to help power about 91,000 houses and could be receiving a nod from the ministers in the coming days.

The renewables park, which is essentially subsidy-free, has been expected to reach a 350MW of capacity by having installed about 880,000 solar panels in 364 hectares of farmland across the Kent countryside with some of the panels being as tall as buses.

Apparently, the project has been anticipated to be built at a distance of one-mile north-east of Faversham, which is near Graveney village, including one of the largest energy storage installations globally. The developers have been expecting to secure a development consent order for about £450million from the secretary of business, three years after the discussions had started with the local stakeholders about the plans for the park.

Once the government approves the project, the developers are hoping to start building out the Cleve Hill solar farm in the early days of 2021 and begin the generation of electricity by the year 2023.

Renewable energy has been considered as an important element in the plans of the UK to terminate its contributions to the crises climate it has been facing by creating an economy that is carbon neutral by the year 2050, while also helping the economy grow considerably as coronavirus continues to plague lives.

The growing fleet of solar panels in the UK has been able to produce a record level of cleaner electricity over the recent days, by reaching a high of 9.68GW in the previous month while also helping take the energy system of the UK towards its longest stretch without any coal-fired power from the time of Industrial Revolution.

Reportedly, the renewables industry believes that the solar power capacity of the UK can increase up to 27GW by the year 2030. This will be done after the UK government removed a block that had prevented the onshore wind and solar farm projects from competing in the subsidy contract auctions.

 

Source Credit- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/24/britains-largest-solar-farm-poised-to-begin-development-in-kent