Renewable generator Enviromena has switched on its first UK solar farm, a 100-acre, 25.4MW bifacial array.
The site in Three Maids Hill in Winchester uses 47,088 bifacial modules with the capacity to power up to 9,500 homes.
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The energy generated from the site will feed into the national grid via a connection to a nearby substation. Enviromena is headquartered in the UK, with solar farms already functional in Jordan, Dubai, Egypt, and Morocco.
In April last year, the UK government set out plans to grow its current 14GW solar capacity by up to five times by 2035.
When asked about future projects in the UK, Enviromena’s European Development Director Mark Harding said: “Various projects across solar and storage are in the pipeline. [They will be] located across England and Wales, with capacity ranging from small-scale sub-10MW to large-scale battery schemes 100MW+.”
Harding also said in a press release that the Winchester site “represents a major milestone in Enviromena’s history. We have now proven that Enviromena’s fully-integrated development and operations business model, and our team, can successfully develop and safely construct attractive, bankable renewable projects in major European markets.”
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By GlobalDataThe project’s completion comes a few weeks after former UK prime minister Liz Truss cast serious doubt over the future of solar farms in the UK by moving to ban solar projects from much of England’s farmland.
This stance was also held by her successor Rishi Sunak, who wrote for The Telegraph in August that under his watch, the UK “will not lose swathes of our best farmland to solar farms”. He added that solar panels should be installed only “on commercial buildings, on sheds and on properties”.
However, plans to extend protections of farmland, which would have effectively stunted the solar sector in the UK, were abandoned in December last year, reducing uncertainty for future solar projects.
Capital investment in the UK renewables sector currently stands at up to £20bn, according to the Financial Times.
