PROPOSALS are being unveiled today for West Dorset’s first solar farm, costing an estimated £10-12 million.
Fifteen acres of photo-voltaic panels at Wyld Meadow Farm near Monkton Wyld in the far west of the county could generate 3 to 4 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 1000 homes.
Wyld Meadow is owned by Clive and Jo Sage, best known for their award-winning Dorset lamb and leading role in local farmers’ markets. They’re working in partnership with Cirencester-based company Low Carbon Solar.
Mr Sage said that many farmers across the South West were now contemplating a move into solar power.
He said: “Farming has been pretty dire for the past ten years. This is an opportunity for farmers to diversify into clean, green renewable energy.
“I could still keep grazing my sheep under the panels, and I’d have another income coming in.
“The input costs of farming are going up all the time: this would support the rest of the farm and give us a more sustainable future, for my generation and hopefully my son’s as well.”
He added: “There’ll always be someone that doesn’t like the idea but so far we’ve only had positive feedback.”
That could change when a public exhibition about the scheme is held in Wootton Fitzpaine village hall between 3 and 7pm, Friday, January 28.
Maelle Lego, of Low Carbon Solar, said: “We’ll be putting up lots of information about the site and what we’re hoping to do.
“We’re a company that wants to involve the local community and keep people informed.
“We want to make sure that everyone is as happy as they can be.”
Two company representatives – called Marcus Peech and Liz Marsden – will be at the exhibition to answer questions along with Mr Sage.
Feedback to them about the scheme’s pros and cons will help to shape any future planning application. The area around Monkton Wyld is attractive to solar farm developers because there’s a 7-acre substation which could be used to feed power into the National Grid. But it’s also right on the edge of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Ms Lego stressed that the project was still at an early stage.
Mr Sage said that he wanted to help provide Britain with energy. He thought that events around Christmas time, when many people had been unable to get heating oil, or had been forced to pay extremely high prices, had perhaps been a foretaste of one possible future.
He said: “It’s not until you haven’t got a commodity, you think ‘Oh dear’”.
Low Carbon Solar is – to quote its website – “a developer of solar farms and roofs. We finance and own the majority of sites we develop, pay rent to the land and roof owners, and can sell cut-price, green electricity back to them.
“As a 100% subsidiary of Low Carbon Group Ltd, which has five years’ experience in the renewable arena, Low Carbon Solar only invests in projects that we believe will achieve planning permission and can be built. Our investments in solar power currently span France, Spain, Italy, Greece and South Africa.”
The company, being quite new, currently has no solar farms in Britain.
Ms Lego said: “It’s like the gold rush at the moment. There’s a lot going on, but nothing has been built yet.”
The Low Carbon Group – to quote its website – “is a renewable energy development and renewable energy fund management group founded by Mark Shorrock and Roy Bedlow.
“In 2006 Mark Shorrock founded Low Carbon Investors, investment manager of the AIM listed Low Carbon Accelerator fund which he also founded. In 2008 Mark Shorrock founded Low Carbon Solar Holdings, a private investment vehicle currently investing in solar power plants in Spain.”
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This is a superb idea. We really need to be looking at alternative energy sources right now as peak oil is now a reality and the future of carbon based energy sources can only become one of greater expense and even greater world demand. Wind power fluctuates according to conditions but at least the sun can be relied upon most days of the year!