A new solar farm could be the largest on the Isle of Wight – with the capability to power more than 5,000 homes.
The Sunny Oaks Renewable Energy Park has been proposed for the outskirts of Wootton by Ridge Clean Energy and it could get the go-ahead next week.
It is anticipated the solar park could generate around 20 MWh of renewable electricity each year, supplying the network via the Wootton Common substation and a battery energy storage system would be built across the road.
The plans have split opinion – there are 19 letters in support but 24 against and campaign group ‘Wootton Against Solar Power’ has been created.
Those in favour say it would support energy independence, is essential for the future and would make use of poor quality land but others argue its visual impact would be detrimental, and say there would be increased noise, a great flood risk, loss of biodiversity and glint and glare into neighbours’ homes.
If passed, the park would be built on fields owned by Briddlesford Lodge Farm, which would be used for livestock grazing between July and October.
It would stretch behind Butterfly World and the houses on Park Road, wrapping around Fattingpark Copse and it could have ground-mounted solar panels over 27 hectares, with a plan to run it for 40 years.
Planning officers have recommended Councillors approve the application with 16 conditions, including landscaping, drainage and flood measures.
In a report to the planning committee, they say it would make a significant contribution to local renewable energy generation, with positive economic, social and environmental benefits.
The benefits would outweigh the ‘minimal to moderate’ negative impacts, the officers say, principally the loss of agricultural land, the change from greenfield to solar panels and the solar farm’s impact on local homes.
The park’s future will be determined on Tuesday 5th September by the Isle of Wight Council’s planning committee.
The proposed development could take 6 months to build, if it is approved.
I love it when they say it ‘could’ which always in renewable terms means it might occasionally but is guaranteed will never reliably produce anything like what’s claimed and then it’s going to be run for only 40 years (with panels degrading every year from construction so producing less and less) and then what? Everyone being forced to rely on its intermittent supply and hugely environmentally damaging battery backup(which degrade a lot quicker than the panels), will suddenly have no energy because the 40 years are up and they will have to go cold – it’s ok though as most will have starved by then because all the productive farms will have been re-wilded ‘to save the planet’ – welcome to eco-utopia
Increased noise how? Loss of biodiversity how? Glint and glare, from what, not exactly sunny most of the time these days. Just build them. Good idea.
Nimbys will be angry but it is important that new infrastructure is built, because god forbid someone build solar panels that the nimbys might see for two seconds driving past on the road, meanwhile they’ll complain about high energy prices but still try to block wind turbines, solar panels because they’re ‘ugly’.
And what do they do with the old panels do you know? Dumped.
Same with expired composite blades. They are un-cyclable and simply dumped in fields.
Everyone is a nimby. No one has been known to ask of an estate agent, I’m looking for a new house next to a wind farm.
What happens on cold winter nights when more power is needed? Just asking…
There is this thing called the grid
The damage to the ground underneath, the loss of habitats and land to this farm and the amount of sunshine we get in that part of the island, doesn’t justify its creation.
on average, july has the highest hours of sunshine at 222 hours for the month, with december the lowest at 54 hours for the month. This means, at best the solar panels would be working for about 9 days (24 hour periods) in total in July and just over two days in december.
on average we see 1699 hours of sunlight a year in ryde, which means that a solar farm would only be effective for 70 days a year, against 365 days available at 8760 hours.
solar will never be a consistent, reliable baseload energy source at the current level of storage tech.
You do realise they work when it’s cloudy as well don’t you?
They obviously have no clue and probably one of the “Wootton against solar power” numpties
And you do realise that on a cloudy day, a solar panel will barely generate 10% of its productive capacity
Exactly, we need a new coal plant, not solar!
‘In a report to the planning committee, they say it would make a significant contribution to local renewable energy generation, with positive economic, social and environmental benefits.’
Only benefit I see is 40 years worth of money into the Briddlesford coffers. No IOW houses can benefit. What is the social benefit ? I’m all for solar farms but don’t bullshit us with your marketing hype. IOW council should be for it too.You know it makes sense and a tiny contribution towards carbon reduction.
And all the carbon it will save will be more than used up importing the food that this land would have produced from overseas. Why are these green types so thick, they can’t see this?
you obviously have no idea just how much food that particular piece of land doesn’t produce..
why are you so thick?
It’ll be built n matter how many objections to this hideous desecration of the countryside. The climate/eco cult is too powerful. The cult now dictates virtually all political, economic and planning policy.
I don’t get it. We live on an island surrounded by water with strong tidal flows. Why on earth aren’t we using water turbines to generate energy??!!
Could’t agree more Joe. There are so many ” green fields ” left to grass over here that to utilise some of them for clean energy seems a no brainer. just some small landscaping in carefully selected places would mitigate any ” unsightly ” effects that may occur but, personnally, I’m not to bothered about the appearance.
‘If passed, the park would be built on fields owned by Briddlesford Lodge Farm’ – doesn’t Barry Abrahams, a local councilor own this land? Probably why the committee recommends it is approved. Funny that!
No he doesn’t!
It’s owned by bridlesford farm.,
Why screening if these installations are not a hideous desecration? The provision of screening answers that question. It self-admits. Let us hope the planners reject the scheme, Let us hope that net zero lunacy extinguishes itself well before both energy poverty and actual material poverty sweeps the land.