Kwarteng approves 50MW solar farm in Lincolnshire

Kwasi Kwarteng has approved a 50MW solar farm in Lincolnshire but overruled his planning advisor’s concern that its developer should be made to use more powerful panels.

The business and energy secretary has given the green light to INRG Solar’s plans to turn 226 hectares of arable land near Scunthorpe into a solar farm capable to generating up to 50MW in peak conditions.

As well as almost 360,000 solar panels, which could generate nearly 135GWh per annum, the development also includes 90MW of battery storage and a 132kv sub-station.

In a letter published on the the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on Tuesday (5 April), Kwarteng accepted the recommendation of his planning inspector Grahame Gould that a development consent order (DCO) should be granted for Little Crow Solar Park.

Gould wrote that he has “no doubt” that the scheme is consistent with the energy national planning statement’s objectives to “urgently” produce more electricity, particularly from renewable sources.

However, he expressed reservations about whether the solar panels proposed by the developer are sufficiently powerful to justify release of the farmland.

INRG, which says it has developed more than 300MW of solar power in the UK since 2009, is proposing to install panels with a power rating of around 420 watts.

The proposed development could be more productive and make a “significantly more effective” use of the land if more powerful and technologically advanced panels are used instead, the inspector argued.

Gould said that technological advances means panels with ratings as high as 600 watts could be installed within the next 12 to 18 months.

His concerns could be addressed by specifying a minimum power rating for the installed solar panels in the DCO, Gould added.

However, setting out his decision to grant the DCO for Little Crow Solar Park, Kwarteng responded that mandating a minimum rating for the solar panels could undermine the scheme’s viability by forcing the developer to use more expensive kit. On these grounds, the use of less efficient panels should not be precluded, he added.

A sixth of the proposed development site is classified in the “best and most versatile agricultural land” category which the NPS steers onshore renewable developments away from.

Kwarteng’s decision follows a recent debate in Westminster Hall in which backbench Conservative MPs expressed concerns about the land hungry nature of solar farm development, including Sir Edward Leigh whose constituency neighbours Scunthorpe.