Sunnica Solar Farm
By Paul Homewood
Homeowners and farmers are being threatened with having their land effectively confiscated to make way for solar farms to meet Britain’s net zero target, The Telegraph can disclose.
Energy firm Sunnica has submitted plans to build a 2,792 acre solar farm and energy storage infrastructure on the Suffolk and Cambridgeshire borders.
If the Planning Inspectorate recommends to ministers that the plans should be given the go-ahead later this year, it will be the largest solar farm built in the UK so far, providing power for 100,000 homes.
But MPs and residents living in many of the small villages in the area have decried proposals by Sunnica to use compulsory purchase orders for land on which it needs access and where it cannot reach a negotiated settlement with owners.
This would include significant sections of land under which to lay electricity cables connecting the solar panels and battery storage units to the Burwell National Grid Substation in Cambridgeshire.
It could also see the compulsory purchase of land to create wider roads and access points to allow construction of the huge project, which is equivalent to the size of 2,115 football pitches.
The company stated that it "requires powers of compulsory acquisition to ensure that the scheme can be built, maintained and operated, and so that the Government’s policies in relation to the timely delivery of new generating capacity and achieving ambitious net zero targets are met."
‘Completely wrong’
Matt Hancock MP, the former health secretary, who along with Lucy Frazer, a Treasury minister, represents the area earmarked for the development, told The Telegraph: “By attempting to force through unpopular proposals they [Sunnica] damage the case for delivering the renewables we need.
“I support solar developments locally where they are in the right place, with the support of us locally. The way Sunnica has gone about this is completely wrong."
More than a dozen land and property owners are thought to be holding out against Sunnica’s attempt to acquire "an interest" in their land in order to lay cables and gain or improve access to the sites on which the solar farm would be built.
In all these cases Sunnica say "no progress" is being made in negotiations, indicating they may need to move to compulsory purchase.
‘We’ll be sitting next to a ticking time bomb’
Richard Tuke, a landowner who is refusing to allow 800 acres of his land at Freckenham to be used by Sunnica, stated in a consultation document: “Our withdrawal from the scheme does not prevent Sunnica from including our land in their submission to the Inspectorate nor does it stop them from applying for compulsory powers to purchase our land should they choose to do so.
“We have however written the Inspectorate formally telling them that Sunnica are including our land without permission.”
Local views ‘squeezed out’
The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, which supports solar power in brownfield sites, has criticised Sunnica for pursuing its plans through the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime, saying “this risks squeezing local views and local scrutiny out of the decision-making process”.
It added: “It’s worrying that the applicant is also proposing to apply for Compulsory Purchase Orders where it can’t reach a negotiated settlement with affected landowners.”
Critics have also decried the size of the solar farm on what is open agricultural land and the potential danger of the large lithium-ion battery units needed to store the electricity generated by solar panels before transfer to the National Grid. In recent years similar battery units have been involved in fires and explosions in Britain and abroad.
Critics have also decried the size of the solar farm on what is open agricultural land
Mr Hancock said: "Even the most ardent supporter of renewable energy can see that putting a huge battery farm right next to villages is a bad idea. Those behind this proposal have completely failed to bring the community with them, refused to attend all the key meetings and haven’t even tried to win over local support.”
South Korea saw 23 battery farm fires in just two years and a recent battery fire in Illinois burned for three days, with thousands of residents evacuated. Lithium-ion batteries used in solar farm energy storage systems were deemed an "unacceptable risk" in Arizona after causing two serious fires in 2019.
In Merseyside, one of three battery cabins on a site caught fire and exploded in 2020 and nearby residents were ordered to stay indoors.
Solar farm battery units are not covered by the Control of Major Accident Hazards regulations and are unregulated under UK law.
Risk of explosions and toxic gas
Professor Wade Allison, emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, and a panel of experts last year warned that with the potential for huge explosions, fires and clouds of toxic gas, they could devastate towns and villages nearby.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/15/land-may-seized-make-way-solar-farms-net-zero-drive/
The solar farm will be 500MW, but on average will only operate at about 60MW. In other words, it is miniscule in energy terms, despite its industrial scale footprint of 2115 football pitches. You would, for instance need 33 of these monstrosities to provide the same amount of power as a 2GW gas power station such as Carrington, (which you would need anyway to provide backup!).
It is hard to comprehend the size when expressed in acres, but one acre = 1/640th of a square mile.
Therefore Sunnica will be over 4 square miles.
The construction alone, which will take three years, will be massively disruptive to locals, and as the article points out the battery storage situated just a mile away from one of the villages is an accident waiting to happen.
There is something drastically wrong with our planning system, if industrial developments like Sunnica can take place in the middle of pristine countryside without locals having any say in the matter.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Successive governments, being technically illiterate but stupidly green, have ignored the advice of the late Prof Sir David MacKay (chief scientific adviser at DECC) who said that “wind turbines and solar power are a waste of money”. It is no wonder that we are in an energy crisis with massive fuel poverty. And yet the government continues with its failed and ruinous energy policy. It is difficult to understand the stupidity of politicians and the civil service. We need the land for food, not electricity produced when it is not wanted, in the summer.
We depend on power at all times.
Yes, but the greatest need is in winter when it is cold, dark and still.
Yes, when warm woolies are not enough!
And that dependency on power at all times is precisely why it must not be dependent on the weather i.e. wind and solar. Coal, gas and nuclear actually work.
Yes Phillip and of course there is only one thing that companies like Sunnica will be farming and that is subsidies.
The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which all are highly toxic. Silicon dust is a hazard to the workers, and furthermore the panels cannot be recycled.
But Hey . . . Who Cares . . . those dead people will all be over seas EH . . . ??
Ain’t you glad these jobs will not be at home Mr./Ms. Politician ??
We’ve had the Black Death.
We now have the Green Death.
Perhaps the correct rating for these solar panels is the raw materials mining, refining and panel manufacturing deaths.
Before getting to the ever so “green” constituents of what makes up a solar panel what about their suitability as a credible source of energy in the UK even if they were working 24 hours a day 365 days a year? It is all about how much energy from the sun can hit them and that is a function of latitude. I have been trying to find a reference I saw some time ago setting a “northern economic limit” to the location of solar farms in the US. This is fundamental to this whole scam. If I am not mistaken that limit in the US was found to be around 36.5 deg North. Cambridge is FIFTY TWO degrees North. No matter how much spin you put on it, how many fools superglue their faces to roads or marches in support of religion are held or times useful idiots say the word “science”, the laws of physics cannot be ignored to suit unscrupulous weasel businessmen aided and abetted by cowardly politicians. Where are the numbers which PROVE the viability of how much power such a tilting at windmills exercise will produce?
Mr. Pordonmeforbreathing . . . So true . . . However . . .
The reason that the Chinese Burn Coal is that they NOW produce everything that we used to make in the West BEFORE we instituted OUR ‘Clean Energy acts’. Our legislations in the West do NOT require imports to meet the same standards that we have instituted at home.
Our socio-political self-flagellation re: CO2 has put the world in this mess. If for 5 minutes we would realize that pollution . . . REAL pollution is everything attached to CO2 when we burn fossil fuels . . . the problem can be solved NOW. Scrubbers, Electrostatic Precipitators and Nitrogen Oxide burners have been around for over 30 years . . . they remove OVER 95 % of the Poisonous Flue Gases. However the whole Environmental movement does NOT recommend these real world solutions because that would mean crawling into bed with The Enemy . . . The Fossil Fuel Industry . . .
REAL pollution . . .
1. Sulfur dioxide (SO2), which contributes to acid rain and respiratory illnesses.
2. Nitrogen oxides (NOx), which contribute to smog and respiratory illnesses.
3. Particulates, which contribute to smog, haze, and respiratory illnesses and lung disease.
4. Mercury and other heavy metals linked to both neurological and developmental
damage.
5. Fly ash and bottom ash, that are residues created when power plants burn Coal.
95 % or more can be removed with Electrostatic Precipitators special and Nitrogen Oxide burners. Smokestack Scrubbers that remove 99% of solid particles from the flue gases. These Common sense solutions exist . . . We are just NEVER told.
See The Coal Fired Electric Power Plant Belldune New Brunswick, Canada. They Even make gypsum board (drywall) from the recycled water used in the smokestack scrubbers
Pages 7 & 8 . . . https://www.academia.edu/45570971/The_Environmentalist_and_The_Neanderthal
Common Sense would go a long way in our efforts to clean up our world . . .
My Thoughts . . .
The main reason this lapsed Tory would not support ihis Party or.Boris (or his current squeeze) is theiri mad Green policies, which are completely unnecessary for the planet and only harmful to UK and us.
“It is hard to comprehend the size when expressed in acres, but one acre = 1/640th of a square mile.
Therefore Sunnica will be over 4 square miles.”
It’s easier to visualise that area in “Hinkley C footprints”
2,792/430 = 6.5
The latter, however, is capable of generating day & night, 26TWh for 60 years.
I hope you’ve sent that graphic to a few MPs.
And the same zealots who support this are the ones who claimed fracking would destroy the countryside.
Good point although to stop just claim there is some rare wildflower there or great crested newts and that will put paid to it
“The latter, [Hinkley C] however, is capable of generating day & night, 26TWh for 60 years.”
The reactors at Hinkley C are EPRs which are proving extremely difficult and costly to build. No further orders should be placed for these — why should the UK taxpayer pay through the nose in order to rebuild the French nuclear industry? — and the money diverted to expediting SMRs which will get us to large quantities of zero CO2 power much quicker.
JF
Better to spend the money on reliable nuclear, coal and gas than on unreliable wind and solar
That’s an excellent graphic but I doubt many folk can visualise what those numbers mean in terms of space on the ground.
It might be more effective to relate those areas to well-known places. I did some sketchy web searching and found:
Hinckley C covers about the same area as Regent’s Park in London
The equivalent solar farm would more than cover the area inside the North and South circulars or about twice the area of Birmingham.
The wind farm would almost cover Bedfordshire
That assumes that the figures allow for the relative capacity factors. If they are based on nameplate capacities then the areas for solar and wind will be vastly increased!
So now we have eco-nazis to contend with. When you look at the powers the Covid-nazis have assumed, this development would be very much on the cards. ” It’s to save the world.”
It’s all the same nazis, just different pages in their plan.
Does anyone seriously doubt that the eco (includes both “climate” and “green” fanatics) terrorists and covid terrorists are not the same people? Look at their objectives: destruction of normal life and the economy plus of course severely limited if not zero travel.
We must not forget that the developers have no morals. They are only interested in money. The solar panels will be Chinese, with materials sourced using forced and slave labour. The batteries will be made from materials mined using child labour. The damage to the environment form mining the raw materials and manufacturing the solar panels and batteries will be horrendous. But who cares when you are saving the planet?
I am reminded of this comment from one of our anti-solar farm supporters:
“Most large solar farm developer’s interests are not concerned about ecological extinction, preventing global warming, preserving landscapes or appeasing local communities. They use carbon reduction as a business development opportunity and wrap up their arguments in green wash to coerce planning authorities to allow the go ahead of very damaging schemes. These developments maintain the status quo for producers and keep control out of the hands of consumers and communities. Electricity generation remains in the hands of greedy corporates with no direct benefit to the consumers with the downside that their locality is blighted. The consequences of the massive cumulative loss of agricultural land to food security is never considered and biodiversity enhancements rarely make up for more than is lost. “
Industrialists can only work to the laws of the land, so when the laws are so out of kilter with reality, don’t expect a silk purse to be made out of a sows ear. Do you expect pension funds to lose money on their investments, and their money is really our future pension payouts.
If you want a better dialogue, I would say it’s the politicians and Climate Activists (including the BBC) that need to change first. After all, it is they who have been driving the agenda for a decade or two. It is they who promised to create the local green jobs.
This Energy Crisis has originated with those who have pushed NET Zero without any thought to the consequences. It’s the morality of virtual signalling that has driven it. Just look at the virtual signaling involved with cladding the Grenville Tower, a tower that was expected to only last another couple of decades, yet the insulation needed 150 years to make it financially worthwhile! And where we’re the regulators and inspectors?
If Britain had developed the fracced gas that is known to exist, connected the recently developed Cambo and Jackdaw oil/gas fields, allowed the Cumbria coal field to go ahead, and not discouraged long term contracts with the Gazprom, we wouldn’t be in such a fix!
“Electricity generation remains in the hands of greedy corporates with no direct benefit to the consumers…”
I think you have forgotten that these consumers expect electricity at the flick of a switch, at any time of day or night, yet have voted in the Uni-Lib-Lab-Con-Green party that has aimed for the opposite! We do not have a properly functioning energy market for the very reason that ignorant, dysfunctional politicians interfere, and don’t understand that bureaucracy is unable to magic up solutions that don’t exist. Domestically charged EVs won’t be allowed to charge at peak times! Not very convenient, and rather late in the day to be told. That wasn’t the fault of the electricity suppliers.
Of course, companies need to look after their shareholders. In China, with Evergrande, it looks as though the international shareholders will lose everything. That behaviour will only bring chaos and, in those cases, it is usually the poor that suffer most.
Nothing, nothing about all of this ‘Greening of the Planet’ makes any Scientific sense. Every action taken by western governments to improve our ‘Carbon Footprint’ through ‘Electrification’ adds MORE carbon to the environment than the systems currently in place. Knee jerk reactions by governments to ‘Look Good’ in the face of ‘The Big Green Propaganda Machine’ adds to an already very bad situation.
What are ALL the ‘Embodied Environmental Costs’ in ALL forms of Energy Production ? Now that is a big question. Most of us only know what the Media and what Electric Car manufacturers and the Environmentalists want us to hear. The Science is very clear. Electricity is a very bad and inefficient source of energy regardless of how it was produced. Yes, Even solar panels and wind generators and hydro dams, and Bio-Fuels . . . if you ask what goes into building the infrastructure and the fuels that go into these technologies.
(PDF) All Electricity – Poisons Planet Earth | Jim Le Maistre – Academia.edu
The BIGGEST untold story about Electricity comes from the most basic formula in Science, OHM’s Law. Moving electricity creates resistance and that resistance produces HEAT. So, between where Electricity is produced and where it is used between 9 and 15 % is lost to uploading, transmitting and transforming that Electricity, an average of 12 %. High School Science.
The worst among these, however, is how much Electricity is wasted as HEAT charging a lithium-Ion battery. When a new Battery is being charged in an Electric Car, 16 % of what you pay for is lost charging that battery. The odometer in the Car says you have 100 KWH of charge, but it does NOT tell you it cost you 116 KWH to charge it. More as the battery ages. Same for storage batteries at wind farms or solar stations.
28 % of the Electricity Produced is lost as HEAT ! Unseen ! It does not appear where you drive the car as smoke or smog . . . but it IS there far away from where you drive that Electric Car . . . Out of site out of mind. The US government says that an average of 0.92 pounds of CO2 from ALL sources is produces for every KWH of Electricity. Add the 28 % lost during transmission and for charging we get 1.17 lbs. of CO2 per KWH of Electricity used to turn the wheels in an Electric Car.
(PDF) Tesla Versus Toyota Camry | Jim Le Maistre – Academia.edu
(PDF) Electric Cars . . . The Untold Story . . . | Jim Le Maistre – Academia.edu
There is no Magic Trick to living Clean and Green without an environmental Cost. To those of us who HATE burning Fossil Fuels and the industries behind them, Fine . . . But . . . Nothing in this world is free . . . No matter what we may be told. Everything has an untold environmental cost . . . somewhere . . . IF we stop long enough to learn ALL the facts. All Electricity is Poison to Planet Earth . . .
My Thoughts . . .
jimlemaistre: there are those, Suspicious 0bservers on YT, for one, that expect that the Sun will micro-nova soon. It’s supposed to be every 12,000 years, and 12,000 years is about up. 🙂
The good news is that, IF it does happen, then humans, other animals and plants should be OK, as it happened only 12,000 years ago and we are all descendents from those that survived.
The bad news is that our electrical infrastructure doesn’t have the same resilience in its genes.
Today in what is described as ‘An Inter Glacial Period’, The Holocene, we are having a reprieve from the incessant Violence brought upon the World by Volcanoes. Planet Earth is warm for only the second time in 250 thousand years. This Warming Period permits Food Production in the Prairies, Europe and China. Places where 10 kilometers of Ice would usually stand. For little more than 10 thousand years Humanity has had it good. Life for 7 billion people is possible. A mere 25 million souls occupied Equatorial regions of the Earth when Volcanoes and Ice Ruled the World. Let us learn to give thanks to Global Warming and learn to respect Nature as the Supreme Ruler of our Climate and of true Climate Change on our Little Blue Planet.
https://www.academia.edu/49421861/CO2_Cradle_of_Life_on_Planet_Earth
I have spent the last 15 years doing independent research on the Environment. I am a Staunch Environmentalist. Yet my views are somewhat counterintuitive. I am anti-propaganda. It’s our job, collectively, to eradicate pollution, Globally, not just from our own back yard. I dig down sometimes where it hurts the establishment. Honesty means taking the counterintuitive view, even if that crosses swords with established thinking. Saving the planet from all of Human destruction must remain – Goal One.
As an Adamant Naturalist, I disassociate from both Climate Change Deniers and the Environmentalist Collective. False and deceptive activism is prevalent in both camps – An evolved, contemporary, Scientific perspective must rule. I hope you will read some of my work and comment.
https://www.academia.edu/51184433/Climate_Change_For_the_21_st_Century
Yes, over four-and-a-third square miles of solar panels which stop sunlight reaching vegetation beneath them when the plants would have been absorbing CO2, releasing oxygen, and as another result of photosynthesis, absorbing energy from the sun and keeping the air cooler. And the panels themselves are heated by the sun and release their heat into the atmosphere!
“Greens” have a blind spot for environmental degradation caused by renewables, any amount of environmental destruction is OK when it comes to saving the … environment. BBC R4 was in raptures several years ago about solar panels on lakes, which of course would destroy the lake ecology.
The post Covid challenge for the people is the complete exposure of the flimflam that is climate change & its fraudulent offspring of ‘net zero’ emissions. Covering food-producing land & our planet with panels that cannot be recycled, which generate squat “When the sun don’t shine,” sums up the lunacy gripping our world.
Seriously, governments & the unelected ‘world leaders’ are driving the world into oblivion
In a future time of crisis when drones are likely to be used on b o mbing missions all those panels make a target that will be difficult to miss and impossible to defend.
No loss there!
Sequestration of land for building projects, motorways and high speed railways is common practice here in Spain and is legally permitted. Those losing land by law have to be paid but in practice often are not. Land was sequestered ten years ago to build a high speed line from Valencia to Alicante, the money was never paid and, to date, no trains have run on it. One suspects very much the same thing will happen in the UK if the government gets away with this solar farm.
The consequences of ‘our’ net zero policies are depressing. Suggest we lock a politicians name to this project so their career will be finished.
Try Boris’s sunfarm or Alok Sharma’s greenfield oasis.
Princess Nut-Nuts Diddly-Squat Farm Extension (bring your own extensions). (?)
The Minister responsible for Sizewell C (A white elephant up there with HS2 as a waste of money) and Sunnica (Grenfell combined with the Net Zero boondoggle, what could possibly go wrong?) is one Kwasi Kwarteng. Judging by his academic achievements (I know, I know) he seems to be a sharp cookie. If he wants to stay in the Next PM But One Stakes (he runs under Ashcroft colours) he’d better get a grip.
JF
Kwasi Kwarteng may be academically well qualified; but then so are many of the politicians and ‘experts’ who have been driving the covid hysteria since March 2020. So, unless he shows common sense and much more emotional intelligence than we have seen from the current bunch of dimwits, the idea of him ever being a future Prime Minister is very scary to behold. He is more likely to demonstrate the ‘Apollo Syndrome’; “look at me , see how briliant I am, therefore all my ideas must be brilliant too” Spoken while gazing in admiration in front of a mirror.
There is something drastically wrong with our planning system, if industrial developments like Sunnica can take place in the middle of pristine countryside
without locals having any say in the matter.Wouldn’t it at least be more honest to call it a”Subsidy Farm” instead of a Solar farm?
‘Subsidy farce’ would be more accurate.
I do detect a slight change in the MSM attitude to all this, there have been numerous articles in the telegraph and mail this year on the consequences of going all out for net zero in terms of cost to consumers. On Friday 14th January, there was a £3000 per MWh peak at around 5pm, No wind and No solar, All interconnectors flat out so it must have been tight on power, Gas use is high and LNG is supplying 25% with about 10% from storage(although that goes back at night when demand is low) It was not that cold, a few power cuts would be a great help to our campaign.
Yes I thought that too. Hydro, pumped, OCGT, coal all going full tilt.
I don’t think this was related to the situation
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/power-cut-live-updates-during-6496803
GeoffB,
I suspect this is the real purpose of this farm, store power in the batteries and sell when the price is high. I also suspect that, as in winter with little solar outut the batteries will be charged off the grid.
‘providing power for 100,000 homes’
They already have power.
“By changing their power supply to an intermittent source, they are taking away power from 100,000 homes.”
Fixed it.
And what happened to food security? They are going to pave over 4 squares of farmland!
I’d like to see the food security people with swords in the field face off against the climate change people. Primitive weapons seem appropriate.
The same Telegraph also carried a report suggeting that we are at fault for not madating adequate gas storage for all energy generators. This is nonsensical but if they were all dual fuel it would be entirely practical to install a few kero or diesel starage tanks at each site by next winter.
Warren Buffet put it simply, many years ago, when questioned about his investments in renewables, (not his exact words), Renewables are subsidy farms. Without large subsidies, they are nothing….
There is no cost / benefit assessment that could find this project worthwhile. The only possibility would be massive carbon tax to make all other generators “uneconomic”. The carbon savings are negligible in world terms: pure greenwash and virtue signalling.
We have replaced perfectly good power stations with unreliables in the name of the carbon god.
Nor energy balance assessment. This vast construction project will consume way more energy than the solar panels will ever produce.
Can we all agree to use ‘Unreliables’ in the place of ‘Renewables’ in future? Such a perfect use of the English language. Thank you Mr Broughton.
My personal favourite is, Ruinables.
Is this a private venture? Is private capital being sought? Is there a prospectus? Does it mention taxpayers subsidy in the business plan? With a statement referring to risks inherent in government policies? What numbers for return on capital? ( given UK’s latitude and cloudiness)? Buyer Beware!!! (Do check the yield . If above three per cent- run like hell!)
SUNNICA LIMITED are promoting the scheme and they in turn are largely owned by JIGG FM Ltd and a Marcus Luke Murray who appears to be a serial renewables investor with 40 other renewable subsidy collecting companies. JIGG FM Ltd is owned by a Spanish Investor in solar farms in that country. Thing is this one looks like it won’t receive a subsidy so could be a straight commercial scheme but not sure that stacks up financially but maybe im missing something.
Does any wind or solar project ‘stack up commercially without subsidies’? Only if you charge the end user the real rates, but no Govt could survive the fallout if that were the case. So, basically, no. No unreliables project is commercially viable. You could call it a contradiction of terms.
Yes, you are missing something, the batteries.
That’s where the subsidies & hence the profits lie.
I believe that Clayhill has been covered on here.
Solar panel and wind “farms” take no CO2 out of the atmosphere to meet ill-defined net zero goals. When will they understand that? Even the necessary carbon capture and storage facilities to meet net zero will need the energy from fossil fuels to operate.
Perhaps some eager/beaver investigative journalist or other interested party might like to carry out full research on Sunnica Ltd and its associates which are, according to filings at Companies House, INSOVENT! Ultimately there is a Spanish company hiding in the back ground. Research hounds might like to look further!
Sadly, to date, no self-respecting Media Representative wants to risk the Ire of their Peers or the Mandarins ruling the Environmental Movement or The Purveyors of Globalization in our New Social Construct. For they are ‘Brothers-in-Arms’, so to speak. Who wants to be the one to open Pandora’s Box? . . . It would be like pulling Hans Brinker’s finger from the Dyke or Killing the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg . . . The old adage . . .
There are none so blind as those who will not see . . . How Ironic . . .
A secondary issue is that of the danger associated with large batteries, discussed in the article. My council has approved smaller scale, but still dangerou, installations without even referring them to the Fire Dept, because nobody says they have to (highlighted in the article: “Solar farm battery units are not covered by the Control of Major Accident Hazards regulations and are unregulated under UK law.”
I write to my MP, every time I see an article like this, trying to get something done. If London Fire brigade are scared to death of electric scooter fires, why isn’t there action on installations of this scale?
Our political class is so utterly inept it makes me want to scream with rage.
There is likely to be corruption in the AGW scene. Perhaps it is morewidespread than the public have thouht.
Why else could those in charge seem so wierdly stupid and obstinate about continuing a set of obvious scams??
Likely????!!!!!
What battery storage units are supposed to accomplish is unclear.
You HAVE TO HAVE total supply of power from somewhere else for 19 hours a day.
The solar is going to be out for 19 hours a day. Every day. So, with batteries, you can get 5 hours and 5 minutes of power, instead of 5 hours?
Are batteries going to cover periods when a cloud flies over? Cycling the batteries frequently like that will severely shorten their useful life. Yet they make no sense except for short term ride through. Extremely short term.
This too will cost way more than any value it could possibly provide. These projects seem to be engineer free. Wildly impractical, wildly expensive, wildly abusive to the locals.
16 % of the electricity going into the battery is lost as heat exciting the electrons in those lithium ion batteries, when they are new. then you lose 12 % more on the way to your house. That is 28 % wasted electricity . . . before you ever get to use it !
https://www.academia.edu/52039545/All_Electricity_Poisons_Planet_Earth
Electric Cars cause to be burned at least 15 % more CO2 that gas cars
https://www.academia.edu/64085546/Electric_Cars_The_Untold_Story_
Elitist propaganda rules the Media and by extension Every Western government soo . . .
We pay the price until enough people say . . . STOP !! This is ALL Lies . . .
https://www.academia.edu/51184433/Climate_Change_For_the_21_st_Century
My Thoughts . . .
I suspect the batteries will be used to smooth the output on days when clouds scudding over make it somewhat intermittent. I’d also expect they will store a chunk of the midday peak for release in early evening, when it might secure a better price. I’m guessing, but I expect they will aim for four hour duration batteries, so perhaps 200MWh at 50 MW. Then again, with lithium now so expensive I suspect batteries will have to wait.
I’d expect the battery to be tiny. It will mostly be sending a PR message that they are doing something about the grid stability problem, so that the green journalists can run articles on how the solar intermittency is miraculously solved.
Which of course wouldn’t be true, as to really match the production to demand even on a single sunny summer day, providing about 200 MW of power reliably, the battery would need to store something like 2000 MWh (which will cost twice as much as the 500 MW solar farm itself). And storage between days, let alone seasonal storage, is out of the question completely. Storing power in the winter is probably not going to happen much, as the output will be lower than than demand even during peak production, so all the electricity will go to grid, and the battery will idle.
On the side note, high lithium price is unlikely to impact the battery prices much. Lithium carbonate sells for $52000/T at present, and if I am not mistaken battery storage systems use something like 0.15 T/MWh. With the price of battery storage at around $200000/MWh, lithium makes up less than 5% of its total cost. Most of the costs seem to be in other materials and manufacturing.
The batteries are used for trading. They are charged when electricity is cheap (at night) and discharged during peak times (morning and evening) when electricity prices are high.
However, at least 16 % of that electricity going into the battery is lost as Heat exciting the electrons inside the battery that will NEVER come out . . . it is absent the calculation of OHM’s Law. Resistance creates HEAT !
There is no Magic Bullet no matter how many times you may be told.
https://www.academia.edu/52039545/All_Electricity_Poisons_Planet_Earth
https://www.academia.edu/64085546/Electric_Cars_The_Untold_Story_
My Thoughts . . .
Sobaken
As I understand it, the price you quoted is for battery grade Li2CO3, which has 6 times the molecular weight of pure lithium. I think you are therefore looking at more like 1 tonne per MWh, as your figure for metal content seems similar to what I can find. Other component materials have also been rising fast.
The battery is there, as part of the Short Term Operating Reserve, so not directly linked to the variability of generation of the solar subsidy farm.
Gamecock,
grid batteries are not used to make up for intermittency but short duration frequency support, often at very high prices.
Except it won’t be capable of ‘powering 100,000 homes’, but probably only a 1/10th of that.
The company stated that it “requires powers of compulsory acquisition to ensure that the scheme can be built, maintained and operated, and so that the Government’s policies in relation to the timely delivery of new generating capacity and achieving ambitious net zero targets are met.”
These developers could do press ups under snakes, as demonstrated by their cynical use of this phrase in order to screw money out of taxpayers. As has often been said, by economists and business people far wiser than me ‘If a business is worthwhile it doesn’t need subsidies’
And, of course, the biggest subsidy is hidden: the costs of decommissioning their bloody solar farms when, within a generation (now there’s an unfortunate word), the owners will have disappeared and left the toxic crap to the tax-payers to pay for.
These people are Spivs. In the war they would have been put in prison or even gone for the long drop. I wish…
Compulsory acquisition is not about subsidies. It is the last resort when developments mandated by government policy cannot reach agreement with landowners on land purchases. It is done at a market value assessed by a legal process.
A ‘market value’ that’s significantly degraded by having a bloody great solar farm around? Got it. However, no market value in the world can compensate for being forcibly ejected from your home and land.
In the U.S., this is known as eminent domain.
“Eminent domain refers to the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use.”
As in the Kelo case, it gets real messy when government seizes property for a private business. Everyone reads “public use” as “government use,” but Kelo blurs that line.
So, in the U.S., this seizure of land for Sunnica would be considered legal, though MOST people would think it wrong. See: Difference between law and justice.
Green madness – nothing more, nothing less.
I wonder whether the execs at Sunnica have worked out yet that, next to the military, the nation’s farmers are the next profession with the highest ownership of firearms in the UK. Just saying!
We are talking about environmental destruction on a grand scale. For example Virginia has almost 800 square miles of solar in development.
https://www.cfact.org/2021/12/27/paving-virginia-with-solar-slabs-is-a-bad-law/
Environmentalism has truly lost its way.
https://www.cfact.org/2022/01/04/environmentalism-has-lost-its-way/
Personally, Environmentalism has always been about a ‘self-sustaining’ agenda . . . $$$
Common sense is nowhere in site. Any innovation or crack pot idea that even remotely shows promise in replacing ‘Big Oil’ or the ‘fossil fuel industry’ flies to the top of the charts.
More hits . . . More Money. Environmentalism is ‘An Industry’ like any other. People at large have been sucked into the vortex. The Media First . . . The Messes get sucked in like Lemmings.
Being denied freedom of expression by the press is another kind of suppression of free speech. Editorial decisions can limit free speech. Selecting which voices are to be heard is a form of autocratic bias. By exclusion, only those that are vetted may be heard. Right or wrong this is suppression of free speech.
Vertical integration of Global Media ownership has limited the once broad-based hearing process where counterintuitive positions were proposed and could find a voice and a hearing in public opinion.
Is this not why The # 1 journalistic principal of ethics is . . . Truth, Accuracy, and Objectivity ?
Robert Oppenheimer – is quoted to have said . . .
We do not believe any group of people adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it, is to be free to inquire.”
That freedom of expression is paramount in democratic societies worldwide . . . that freedom breaks down when elitist intellectualism stifles the voices of those who think and speak outside the ‘Mainstream Perspective’. Populism results because the common people, 80% of society, need to ‘feel heard and be heard’ even when the intellectual elite disagree.
https://www.academia.edu/49676862/Social_Engineering_Environmentalism_and_Globalization_A_New_World_Order
“Being denied freedom of expression by the press is another kind of suppression of free speech.”
Add in the selective suppression by social media outlets like the owners of Facebook and Twitter and the loss is complete.
That is why Paul Homewood MUST be celebrated and unconditionally supported for the Truth, Accuracy, and Objectivity he brings in the absence of same from those in the Media whose responsibility it SHOULD be . . .
Totalitarianism depends on the ability to lie and have the lies accepted as truth.
Environmentalism . . . ‘The Big Green Propaganda Machine’ Is the dissemination of ‘credible Massages’ to Scientific truths that can be shown in a lab while life on Planet Earth is tens of thousands of inter related interconnected forces beyond Human control.
https://www.academia.edu/51184433/Climate_Change_For_the_21_st_Century
My thoughts . . .
No, pochas94, the intent is not to get people to accept it as truth. The intent is to humiliate, to have people have to remain silent in the face of obvious lies.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124952-political-correctness-is-communist-propaganda-writ-small-in-my-study
Excellent Quote !!
Read about the US “sustainable cities.” This is what Congress and the UN have long planned for Americans.
A Quote from . . .
https://www.academia.edu/49676862/Social_Engineering_Environmentalism_and_Globalization_A_New_World_Order
Environmentalism has left its mark. Strident voices have long decried the disgusting atmospheric and terrestrial conditions created by primary industries. Laws were passed and penalties would be paid, or industries would be Shut Down. Results were attained, the skies cleared, industries complied. However, that production had just quietly moved to Third World countries, below the radar. Now they are beyond the reach of law makers at home like the EPA, Cap & Trade or Environment Canada. The Environmental Movement celebrated their apparent successes. No stone was left unturned in Championing Environmental Causes. Unmentioned is the fact that industries had moved to countries where supportive regimes and skilled labor were plentiful, un-assailed. Yet again, common people land stranded, Not only without Employment – Now without a Voice . . . This time . . . at the hands of the very Intellectuals that once had so Stridently Championed their cause.
The duty-bound lawmakers in every effort to wisely clean up the World . . . have inadvertently robbed their most strident supporters of their very existence. Those once powerful Union Jobs in some of the most powerful industry groups in the World are gone to third world countries at one quarter the price ! Total Union membership today is at its LOWEST point since collective Bargaining was legalized almost 100 years ago. No concessions were ever considered to save jobs by sharing the costs of Scrubbers and Electrostatic Precipitators to clean up the Pollution. That would have meant lying in bed with the very Industrialists the Egalitarians had so stridently fought against and Defeated. So, the Mills, the Mines, the Production of Widgets and the purveyors of human usury were shut down. All hail the Champions of the Underdog, the Down Trodden and Society’s Victims. As for the Industrialists, more money could be made abroad, with less effort, in Autocratic Regimes. Supported by Globalization, Environmentalism and Social Engineering for the 21st Century. How Ironic!
Is this what you mean Marlene . . . Poverty and printing Money to make up for in the name of Environmentalism ?
Not Me . . .
Cabling runs under various fields here around the St Asaph North Wales power station supplied from Pensarn beach Abergele feeds from the offshore windfarms in the Irish sea… no compulsory purchase orders. The land owners are paid for inconvenience when laying miles of cables and burying them and adding inspection holes.
The fields carry on in use as before.
I suspect some bullshit.
Eco thugs will not give up. It’s time to tell them and their political serfs to Eff Off, and mean it. This is all about money and nothing else.
Investment in maintaining the UK gas supply infrastructure is quietly being scaled down at the behest of Government.
A decision has already been made that gas supply will be phased out.
Isn’t that called premeditated murder, as they know this will kill people.
Not having any say isn’t constitutional. It makes us feel like we are living under communist rule.Cannot believe this is allowed to happen. Many houses are being built and now this . It is quite distressing. Please help!!
There are disturbing videos of lithium ion battery fires at:
http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/storm-clouds-ahead-down-on-the-solar-farm/
and it comes with the added bonus of a post about Sunnica. Excellent though i say so myself.
JF
The author of this article, yourself?, quotes power figures without noting whether AC or DC. I think the developers all quote DC because that increases by a large margin how much useful power is actually generated (after the DC power passes through inverters and transformers to achieve grid AC).
The behaviour of most of the promoters of these farms is abominable. Some, mainly landowners, have the view that the farm will happen whatever you, the objectors, think, so, get used to it. Wholesale electricity prices doubled last year but that can’t be what is driving this as the planning for these farms started long before last year; the developers might have been so prescient but I doubt that and why in the UK?
As I understand it the EU are requiring developers to meet the cost of disposal of the panels which doubles their cost. Veolia have just built a plant in France for that purpose. I was also amused to hear one of the senior directors, an Italian, of Bluefield who manage and fund these farms describe how the U.K. is attractive to them.
Is the underlying reason not that the UK has become sunny but that our regulatory framework is so piss poor that a blind, deaf, one legged parrot could make money here easier than on the continent?
Hopefully the Inspectors will inquire after the experience of the 2 established developers, Tribus and PS Renewables the Sunnica joint venture. The industry is awash with these people.
PS Renewables Ltd has been a dormant cpy for 8 years and Tribus employs one person and has current assets of £90k. Between them they will need to find hundreds of millions to fund this. The inspectors aren’t stupid, one hopes.
Destroying the environment to… save the environment. At the end of the day, this environmentalist genuflecting will accomplish absolutely nothing – other than bankrupt the public and kill off the elderly and less privileged.
Paul, even more interesting than the way a fight back by residents is gaining so much traction are the resources being thrown at the rescue of one political career.
Call Me Matt Hancock is known to have powerful backers but the present surge of support for the Say No to Sunnica action group, including a major push from the Daily Telegraph of all things, is amazing. Even their normally Green First correspondent, AEP, has been pushing for a sensible energy policy. It seems even the least STEM-literate billionaires are beginning to recognise the renewables push for what it is, a no-hoper.
It just goes to show what a determined opposition can achieve when the government is proposing something that is obviously barking mad. HS2, Net Zero and EPRs next.
If you think this is bad take a look at this nonsense:
Met Office warns of armed militias roaming a UK ravaged by climate change
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1551007/Met-Office-warning-weather-news-report-UK-alert
Seems the Met Office not content with fudging numbers and doing “weather” which will just not play their game they now have decided to go full psycho and branch out into fiction writing.
The Times is read by the people who run the country
The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country
The Guardian is read by the people who think they ought to run the country
The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country
The Independent is read by people who don’t know who runs the country but are sure they’re doing it wrong
The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country
The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country
The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run
The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country
And the Sun’s readers don’t care who runs the country providing she has big ******
Wasn’t that a Bernard quote from ‘Yes Minister’?
Climate Change is a load of rubbish. All that has happened is the sun has put out more heat, this started about the mid 1800’s and stopped increasing about the late 1970;s. This increase has expanded the temperate zone, nothing to do with co2. All that happens is a rise in the temperature of the air which rise and when it has got to three miles or more it is freezing. The real problem is the world is over populated especially this country, food will be a problem in near future. So SUNNICA SOLAR FARM should not go ahead as the land will be needed for food. Has any one asked the botanists how much co2 is needed for trees and plants to survive as they give us the oxygen that we need?