Solar Farm

[Ramjam]

We're pretty rural and I've had several requests lately for field based solar farms. I understand in theory the following....

Enquire of DNO - Can we site a solar farm here? Contestible and no contestible costs
Farmer will need planning - What does he need to submit with planning app, a design, illustrations and application fee or will he need some fancy consultancy report at £300k

I advise farmer...

South facing field, as close to 36 degrees as possible, the steeper the greater the density of panels
Will need a plant room/building 5-10m square, build with suitable roof and cover with panels
Will need grid connection, possibly very expensive depending on how far to robust 3-phase

What I don't know....

What sort of density in terms of kWp per acre/hectare can we expect
Will inverter manufacturer such as fronius do plant room design etc?
What am I missing???? Can I do this or are there so many things that I'm not aware of that I'm being silly?

 

[TedM]

First things will be to get the DNO to quote for connection (see G59 threads on here for more detail) and to ask the local council planning dept, in writing, for an official 'screening opinion" - you'll have to send a plan of the site with this.

The planning dept will tell you if they require an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposal. This will depend on the visual impact of the development and whether they consider that it impacts on any nearby listed buildings, ancient monuments or conservation area.

To get a better idea of what is involved in the planning side have a look at the planning documents here:

Carmarthenshire County Council - click on the 'View - Whole Doc' links to download the files.

This is for a 20,000 panel solar farm near here.

 

[TedM]

And you can get approx 500 kWp of panels on 1 hectare of land (100m x 100m).

 

[Ramjam]

Thanks TedM that's very useful indeed, I'm in conversation with WPD so hopefully the way forward will appear through the clouds very shortly.