Solar panels to power Dorset prison
Guy's Marsh will generate enough green energy for their daytime use
Solar panels will be installed on almost an acre of the prison grounds at Guy’s Marsh – enough to provide energy for the majority of the jail’s daytime use.
Dorset Council has approved the Ministry of Justice application having recently agreed an extension to the prison.
The ground solar panels will be installed on a field south of the main prison complex to generate 112kW of power.
The Ministry of says the panels will produce enough power for 75% of the site’s minimum daytime use and almost ten per cent of the prison’s annual energy use.
It is to use 90 solar panel arrays in seven large rows together with a 100kW inverter and other equipment, all surrounded by a deer-proof fence and linking in to the prison’s main switch room.
The Ministry says it will improve the habitat of the site by additional grass planting and native trees to reinforce the existing hedgerow. Bat and bird boxes will also be distributed across the site.
The request to Dorset Council says that the solar panels do not need foundations and can be removed from the area at the end of their operational life which can be anywhere between 25 and 40 years.
The application comes after the Ministry was given Government funding to help cut its carbon emissions as part of the pledge to become net zero by 2050.
As the second largest Government estate prisons and justice buildings account for more than 20% of central Government’s total greenhouse gas emissions, which it is aiming to reduce.
A recently approved application to expand the Dorset prison site is expected to create an additional 75-100 jobs once completed. It allows for the demolition of a redundant sports pavilion, workshop, IT portacabins and the fire-damaged Wessex cell block, erecting in its place two 2-storey cell blocks, a new workshop, office accommodation for offender management, an extension to a gym building and a new all-weather sports pitch with secure perimeter fencing, as well as the construction of a control and restraint unit.