Johns Associates is working with the UK’s first 100% renewable energy supplier, Good Energy, to promote a proposal to co-locate solar panels on the site of the iconic Delabole wind farm, the UK’s first commercial on-shore wind farm. A planning application for a scheme with a capacity of up to 2MW has been submitted to Cornwall Council, which would provide power for the equivalent of 490 homes.
Johns Associates submitted a planning application in September 2015 to Cornwall Council for a solar scheme with a generating capacity of up to 2MW. This innovative scheme is expected to provide power for the equivalent of 490 homes.
The design of this solar farm has two strands of innovation running through it. The first is its location on the same site as the existing wind farm. There are only a small number of sites where this approach has been taken and so this site would make an important contribution to understanding efficient location of renewables.
Secondly, the site is currently cultivated for silage production. The design has been modified so that the panels sit higher above the ground and more widely spaced to enable that operation to continue, resulting in no change to the agricultural productivity of the site.
Johns Associates worked closely with Good Energy to produce and submit this application over a very short timescale due to the considerable uncertainty over the FIT and ROC mechanisms around solar generation.
Johns Associates produced the following documents in support of the application:
- Planning Supporting Statement;
- Design and Access Statement;
- Flood Risk Assessment;
- Ecological Assessment;
- Arboricultural Assessment; and
- Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment.
The scope of work also included coordinating completion and submission of the application and reviewing and inputting into the other documents submitted including heritage appraisal, statement of community involvement and agricultural land classification.
The Delabole application is part of the ongoing portfolio of planning and environmental assessment work Johns Associates is undertaking with Good Energy, with a number of projects in the planning system or at feasibility or pre-feasibility stage.