Railside solar farms ‘shot in the arm’ for community energy

Building solar farms next to railways could be a ‘shot in the arm’ for the UK’s struggling community energy sector, according to one expert.

Speaking to Utility Week, the executive director of the Riding Sunbeams project, Leo Murray said work is due to start next month (August) on a pilot scheme to build a 30KW solar farm with 135 panels on land owned by Network Rail, just outside Aldershot railway station.

The solar farm is the first of its kind being developed by Riding Sunbeams, which is a collaboration between climate change charity 10:10, Community Energy South, Network Rail and other organisations.

“This is a practical solution for the community energy sector, which will give it a shot in the arm and will get some new projects built,” he told Utility Week.

“If all goes well, we should be raising construction finance this time next year to build five more sites.”

The aim is to use the renewable energy generated to power the railways through Network Rail’s own distribution system.

“Network Rail is the UK’s largest electricity consumer,” explained Murray. “They use about 1 per cent of all electricity demand in the UK and nearly a third of that goes on its DC traction network, south of London.

“Solar is generated at 600-800 volts DC and that is also the operating voltage of the DC third-rail traction system, so it’s a perfect fit.”

Murray added that he believes solar panels could meet 10 per cent of traction demand on Network Rail’s DC networks.

Although only a third of the electrified routes in the UK are DC, the rest are AC overheard which needs a different technical connection, which Riding Sunbeams is looking into.

A report published last month by Community Energy England and Community Energy claimed 2018 was the toughest year yet for the sector, with new generation capacity falling steeply in comparison to previous years.

Last year, just 7.9 MW of new community energy capacity was installed, including 0.7 MW across four micro hydro schemes and 7.2 MW across 47 new solar sites.

“The activity which is still happening in the community energy sector is furiously building out the last projects that were accredited under the Feed-in-Tariff regime,” said Murray.

“The only way smaller MW scale schemes can work is if they have an onsite private wire client who is able to act as a counter party.

“But the truth is those kind of projects will just not be accessible to anyone, except the most established and highly expert community energy groups.

“We are trying to solve a lot of those problems and say ‘we have a client who will buy your power and these are the terms. If you can build your solar farms on those terms, then we will contract with you’. This concept makes the complexity go away for community energy groups.”