Solar farm gets green light in Alfreton
It is set to power thousands of homes with green electricity
An energy company, Anesco has just got the go-ahead to build a new solar farm in Derbyshire after securing the approval from Amber Valley Borough Council and North East Derbyshire District
It is set to power around 5,000 homes a year, and make a big difference to the Carbon Dioxide levels by using renewable energy.
The plan is to save over 4,000 tonnes of CO2 emissons every year, making the area more eco friendly. The farm is expected to take around 27 weeks to develop, and will be located in Alfreton, on a 94-acre site that is currently used for agriculture.
Business Development Director Sarah Webb is hoping it will make a big difference to the community, and is optimistic about the response in the area so far. She said:
"We've had a very good level of support from local residents for this project. It's been situated good location on poorer grade agricultural land, it's in an area where visual impact is pretty minimal."
Looking to the future
In 40 years time, the company will then remove the panels and infrastructure to restore the site back to its original use of being low-grazing land. But Sarah is hoping that this will not end up being the case, and the farm will be operational for longer. She said:
"What I suspect will probably happen is, after 40 years, technology will have probably moved on quite considerably by that point, if providing solar is still a key part of the energy mix, maybe we'll be able to install more efficient technology at that point, and we'll simply look to repower the site and press the reset button rather than take the whole project down."
With COP 26 in full swing, Sarah also added that there is long way to go before the climate is in a sustainable place. She added:
"We've got quite optimistic targets that we need to achieve net-zero, really in order to achieve that we need quite a lot more solar on our network, also a lot more wind as well. It all falls as part of the total energy mix."
16% biodiversity net gain
The company is also hoping that they will be able to improve the local biodiversity in and around the site by installing bat and bird boxes, as well as planting a tree and hedgerows.