By Paul Homewood
Homeowners and farmers are being threatened with their land effectively being confiscated to make way for responsive solar farms. UK net zero goal, the Telegraph can reveal.
The energy company Sunnica has submitted a plan to build a 2,792-acre site Solar farms and energy storage infrastructure on the border of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
If the Planning Ombudsman suggested to ministers that the scheme should be implemented by the end of the year, it would be the largest solar farm built in the UK to date, supplying electricity to 100,000 homes. home.
But MPs and residents living in many small villages in the area have opposed Sunnica’s proposal to use a compulsory purchase order for land they need access to and where a negotiated agreement with them cannot be reached. Owner.
This will include substantial land for laying electrical cables connecting the solar panels and battery storage to the Burwell National Grid Substation in Cambridgeshire.
It could also see the mandatory purchase of land to create wider roads and access points to allow for the construction of the massive project, equivalent to the size of 2,115 football fields.
The company states that it “requires mandatory acquisition powers to ensure that the program can be built, maintained, and operated, and so that Government policies regarding the timely provision of new generation capacity and achieve ambitious net targets”.
‘Completely wrong’
Matt Hancock MP, a former Health Secretary who, along with Lucy Frazer, a Finance Secretary, represents the development sector, told The Telegraph: “By trying to force the passage of proposals through. uncommon, surname [Sunnica] ruin the case for the renewable energy supply we need.
“I support local solar developments when they are in the right place, with our support locally. The way Sunnica has gone about this is completely wrong. “
More than a dozen property and land owners are said to be resisting Sunnica’s attempt to gain “interests” in their land to lay cables and gain or improve access to sites. that the solar farm will be built.
In all of these cases, Sunnica says that “no progress” is being made in the negotiations, suggesting they may need to move to a forced purchase.
‘We’ll sit next to a ticking ticking time bomb’
Richard Tuke, a landowner who refused to allow Sunnica to use his 800 acres of land in Freckenham, stated in a consultation document: “Our withdrawal from the plan does not prevent Sunnica from giving our land to us. on their records to the Ombudsman as well as will it prevent them from applying for the mandatory right to purchase our land if they choose to do so.
“However, we have written to the Official Ombudsman telling them that Sunnica is covering our land without permission.”
Local views ‘squeezed out’
The British Rural Defense Campaign, which supports solar power in brownfield sites, has criticized Sunnica for pursuing its plan through the National Critical Infrastructure Project (NSIP) regime. , says that “this risks squeezing local opinion and local oversight out of the decision-making process”.
It added: “It is disturbing that applicants are also proposing to file for a Mandatory Order in which they are unable to reach a negotiated agreement with the affected landowners.”
Critics have also criticized the size of the solar farm on open farmland and the potential danger of the large lithium-ion battery units needed to store the electricity generated by the solar panels. out before transferring to the National Grid. In recent years, similar battery units have been involved in fires and explosions in the UK and abroad.
Critics have also criticized the scale of the solar farm on open farmland
“Even the most ardent proponents of renewable energy may find it a bad idea to put a giant battery farm right next to villages,” said Mr Hancock. The people behind this proposal have completely failed to bring the community along, refusing to attend all the important meetings and not even trying to win local support.”
South Korea has seen 23 battery farm fires in just two years, and a recent battery fire in Illinois burned it down in three days, with thousands of residents forced to evacuate. Lithium-ion batteries used in on-farm solar energy storage systems are deemed an “unacceptable risk” in Arizona after causing two fatal fires in 2019.
In Merseyside, one of three battery cabins on a property caught fire and exploded in 2020 and nearby residents were ordered to stay indoors.
Farm solar cell units are not covered by Major Accident Hazards Control and are not regulated under UK law.
Danger of explosion and toxic gas
Professor Wade Allison, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Oxford, and a team of experts warned last year that with the potential for large explosions, fires and clouds of toxic gas, they could be devastating. nearby towns and villages.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/15/land-may-seized-make-way-solar-farms-net-zero-drive/
The solar farm will be 500MW, but on average will only operate at around 60MW. In other words, it is very small in terms of energy, despite the industrial size of 2115 football fields. For instance, you’ll need these 33 monstrosities to provide the same amount of power as a 2GW gas power station such as Carrington, (you’ll need a backup power supply anyway!).
Size is hard to fathom when expressed in acres, but one acre = 1/640 square miles.
So Sunnica would be more than 4 square miles.
Construction alone, which would take three years, would have a huge impact on locals, and as the article pointed out the battery depot located just a mile from one of the villages was an accident waiting to happen. .
There is something seriously wrong with our planning system, if industrial developments like Sunnica can take place in the midst of unspoiled countryside where the locals don’t have any say in the matter. this topic.
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