A Cornish company has said its taking on “controversial solar farm projects”.
Vertical PV UK, based in Newquay, says its technology allows farmers to have a “solar farm on their land whilst still being able to farm a huge variety of crops”.
It comes after a recent planning application to build a vast solar farm on land at Gwinear was rejected, while one at Hayle was approved, Cornwall Live reports.
Managing director of Vertical PV UK, Fin McCormick, said: “This is a potentially revolutionary development in the field of renewable energy generation and we are proud to be working with our German counterparts to create a genuinely more sustainable country. Recently we have seen a series of controversial solar farm projects that reduce valuable arable land to, at best, grazing land for sheep.
“With our vertical PV products farmers can enjoy the benefits of having a solar farm on their land whilst still being able to farm a huge variety of crops.”
The firm has now signed an exclusive distribution agreements with German renewables start-ups Next2Sun and SOLYCO. The agreement will see them supply vertical solar PV products across the UK for use in agricultural, commercial, industrial, and domestic settings.
Vertical PV UK said that in addition to their agri-PV products, they are also supplying electrical and solar installation companies with green roof vertical solar which will allow “for thriving green roofs and rooftop solar simultaneously, along with solar fences and wall mounted solar for maximising a site’s solar potential”.
Recently, an application was refused to erect a 40MW solar farm on almost 200 acres of farmland at Gwinear, near Hayle. Speedwell Solar Farm Ltd, owned by energy giant Statkraft, wanted to put a solar park on 22 agricultural fields at the site.
Cornwall Council planners recommended approval despite concerns about the loss of very best Grade 3 agricultural land and harm to the setting of the Grade II-listed farmhouse and other buildings, among other worries. The application was refused, with harm to Grade II heritage buildings, including Lanyon farmhouse, and the change from post-medieval farmland to an industrial landscape were cited as reasons.
However, a different application was approved just three miles away this month, with a plan to site a 5,000-panel solar farm at the entrance to Hayle green-lit. A Cornwall Council planning committee agreed to allow the facility on 3.75 acres of land next to the A30.
S2W Property 103 Ltd applied to build the solar farm, with battery storage, access, landscaping and other infrastructure on land off Loggans Road, north of Loggans Moor Roundabout and adjacent to the A30 and a Lidl store. A number of worried residents and a local councillor raised concerns about flooding and the loss of land abundant with wildlife, but the development was approved.
