Solar farm proposals at Thriplow drift - background

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Suddenly there is all this activity to spread solar panels across packets of countryside. These are not community schemes for putting panels on school roofs, but industrial scale proposals backed by investors, who are taking advantage of the favourable rates for electricity that the government has offered. They may be a really good idea, but we need to have the debate now about something that will still be there a quarter of a century later? Who gets the best deal out of this – the people, the planet, or the investors? Click here for an excerpt from my radio cambridgeshire interview

We are now into double figures in terms of sites across Cambridgeshire, with planning decisions having to be made soon about Bourn and Chittering. There are also proposals for Croydon near Royston, and at Thriplow, near Wilburton and at Ickleton. With the exception of Cornwall, where proposals are about nine months further ahead in terms of planning applications, there is nothing like this any where else in the UK. I guess we have both the spots of low-grade farmland (between the generally pretty high-grade fields) and, more critically, the good connections to the National Grid that these people are looking for.

I think the reason for this surge of activity is the money these schemes will make for their backers by supplying electricity into the national grid at a rate guaranteed for the next 25 years. That fixed price, called the feed-in tariff (FiT), is currently set at just under 30 pence a kilowatt for these schemes generating up to 5 megawatts. But anything built after March 2012 gets 5p a kilowatt less. So for an investor seeking a maximum return, guaranteed for 25 years, this all has to be up and running in the next 12 months – which isn’t a long time in planning terms.

The government has said what it calls “clean energy cashback” will allow many people to invest in small scale low carbon electricity, in return for a guaranteed payment both for the electricity they generate and export. And the cost of paying for this tariff will be met out of our electricity bills. Should we in Cambridgeshire be doing something equally quick to build our own solar parks – after all it is our county. The problem is the up-front cost. It could be £50 to 100k to put panels on a school. These solar farms are costing more like £12million to build, and typically need about 35 acres of land.

Solar farms may have great potential – Kevin McCloud from TV’s Grand Designs is a supporter so they must be a good thing. But we do need to understand the returns for everyone involved. How much profit over the 25 years will the investors make compared with the payments they are offering local landowners and support for communities? Is it a fair return or not?

Will this activity drive down the cost of building solar panels – in other words, a price worth paying because of the knock-on benefits? If most of these developments are about putting up panels in a field, then how much technology and know how will be transferred to putting panels on school roofs?

How much employment will these solar parks provide? The solar industry talks about tens of thousands of jobs being created. Once the panels are in place – a six month build – then how much more is there to do for 25 years apart from maintenance and mending the fences round the site? 

Update for 2013: I read recently about solar panels installation on Trinity College, Cambridge, and it reminded me of the meeting I chaired last year with conservation officers at South Cambs District council. We were trying to work out how to strike a balance between the need to keep buildings representing the reason they were listed in the first place, and recognising that different energy sources can keep buildings useful and functioning rather than just museum pieces. That's not always easy, but it is worth trying to find that balance.