Miliband Approves UK’s Biggest Solar Farm on 3,000 Acres of Prime Farmland
Ed Miliband has approved the UK’s largest solar farm to date, covering 3,000 acres – that’s 2,000 football pitches – of prime farmland in a “mass industrialisation” of Britain’s countryside. The Telegraph has more.
The Energy Secretary approved Tillbridge Solar farm near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire on Tuesday. Once operational, the site will generate enough renewable electricity for up to 300,000 homes when the sun is shining.
The solar farm is controversial among local people and is opposed by Lincolnshire county council and by the district councils.
Opponents object to the destruction of farmland, the “industrialisation” of a quiet rural area and the loss of treasured landscapes.
They fear that the approval will open the way for the land to be developed into factories and housing once the solar farm reaches its end of life in two to three decades.
Sean Matthews, the leader of Reform-controlled Lincolnshire County Council, said Mr Miliband was “hell-bent on this vandalism of our countryside”.
The proposed Tillbridge Solar project would cover about 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares), making it larger than any existing solar farm in Britain.
It would be located near the village of Glentworth, near Gainsborough, between three other large solar farms that are either already approved or are seeking the green light.
The project is a joint venture between London-based Tribus Clean Energy and Recurrent Energy, which is ultimately owned by Canadian Solar.
Mr Miliband has made clear his strong support for expanding solar. After taking office following last year’s general election, he approved a series of major solar developments. They included Gate Burton, Cottam and Mallard Pass, all in Lincolnshire, plus Sunnica on the Cambridge-Suffolk border.
Many more such projects are planned in eastern England, which is being targeted by solar developers because it has high levels of sunshine, cheap farmland and a sparse population.
Mr Miliband published a “solar roadmap” in June setting out plans for further significant increases in solar energy. The UK currently has 18 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity – including rooftop as well as ground-mounted. The Energy Secretary wants to increase this to 57 GW within just five years.
Worth reading in full.
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In Shropshire today, yesterday and for a few days actually, we have had perfect dunkelflaute, so it would be interesting to see how much electricity milibrain’s follies are generating at the moment.
Less than 15% today for those that are interested. Seems quite high to me, so presumably there are a lot of cows farting and causing the turbines to rotate somewhere.
And for yesterday. 9% total including wind, solar and hydro when I looked at 9 am.
Less than the square root of FA I should imagine.
My solar panels which produce about 3.5kW on a sunny day are producing 0.14kW this afternoon, with a nameplate capacity of 4.3kW.
This is about 3% of its potential.
So this would bring Crazy Ed’s 18GW down to 500MW for the next couple of hours then zilch until about 8am tomorrow.
The rest of the country must be brighter than Cheshire. Gridwatch currently (see what I did there) says 1.67GW across the whole country. It is contributing 5% of demand. Thank goodness for gas which is giving over 60%.
This innumeracy at the top has to stop.
Same down here in the south. Our solar PV can produce about 3500 watts at peak, but at the moment it’s 160.
A huge solar array is planned in Cambridgeshire on prime farm land by Sunnica. It was very dull there today so if built little electricity would have been produced.
The consultation document says it will produce electric Trinity for N-thousand homes with no qualification as to sunlight or temperature or snow.
I perceive that mindless greenies, keen on “renewables” are less keen on piling and hectares of panels. They also don’t like the damage to roads which never seems to get repaired.
Thank you for not calling it a solar ‘farm’. They are not farms but follies.
They shouldn’t be called Solar Farms or Wind Farms anyway as far as I’m concerned. Aren’t farms named after what they produce? You farm the land to produce the product e.g. Sheep Farms, Dairy Farms, Wheat Farms etc. They are Electricity Farms.
Solar or Wind installations or arrays, but never ‘farms’.
Electricity installations. Even better.
They are in fact – subsidy farms.
Exactly that, and 100% effective
Calling them electricity farms makes it sound like they are efficient at producing electricity.
Unreliable electricity generator farms would be better.
Personally I think they’re farming madness.
Same with my panels in Birmingham. This is a classic dunkelflaute.
Talking about power supply I notice we are only getting 0.9% of our electricity from interconnectors at the moment, which is the lowest I’ve seen for a long time. It looks like our neighbours have realised that when they need electricity themselves they can just stop sending it to us. That’s awkward for the UK because our plans assumed we could rely on them not to do this.
Yes, if we do ever shut down gas power to the point where it can’t cover the shortfall, and our Nuclear has dropped as expected, we would be totally reliant on the availability of those interconnects, the supply (and cost) of which we have absolutely no control over.
Those countries won’t give it to us at any price if they need it themselves.
Total, utter insanity!
But we have to conclude this is exactly the plan, they can’t all be this stupid!
When power blackouts become a regular feature of life in 3rd-world Britain, the ecozealots will be in for a lot of flack. By then, of course, the damage to our generating capacity will be expensive and time-consuming to repair.
And within ten years this land will be lost for good, fit for nothing. We are only producing about 50% of our current food requirements and given the way Kneel is shovelling gimmies in to the country probably less. Starvation at some point in the next ten years is inevitable which means bloodshed will follow. As no sentient being could honestly support mad developments such as this the only conclusion is that this project is being pushed in order to facilitate the aforementioned outcomes.
Well, I know that he has delusions of grandeur and divinity, but even he cannot increase solar energy.
On a dark winter’s day all he has to do is bend over near a solar panel
Best use of his time.
‘The UK currently has 18 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity’ currently generating 0.56GW
R4 now “solar is definitely the cheapest energy”. Solar & batteries. The whole system is cheaper than gas & nuclear.
seriously??
no costing of the destruction of landscape & land – of course you can’t “cost” in cash terms what upsetting & not listening to people does to morale, belief in democracy, civil disobedience & unrest.
70% of people would welcome solar in their area?
really?
sorry Mr Chris Hewitt I simply don’t believe a word you say.
sickening.
Total bollox as we all know
Reform should make it a policy that, when in government, they will pass legislation obliging these ‘energy companies’ (ie crooks) to remove all trace of their solar and wind equipment at their expense. That might make them think twice before ruining the landscape.
How the Texas power-grid came perilously close to a “black restart” in 2021:
https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2021-08-05/if-the-texas-power-grid-had-gone-down-it-would-need-a-black-start-how-long-would-that-take
“I think it’s safe to say it could be weeks, and depending on the conditions you’re operating under when you go into a black start condition, it could take longer than that.”
Coming sooner or later from NESO – No Electricity, Sod Off.
There should be zero subsidy of any sort, I doubt any company would build any “renewable” crap, this scam needs to be stopped and the perpetrators bought to book….
This really is straying into the realm of the criminally insane now. Somebody needs to tell this prick Ed Milliband that domestic food production is more important than renewable energy.
If this goes ahead the residents of the area will be waking up each morning to a view of nothing but a sea of solar panels for miles in every direction.
This is vandalism of the beautiful, productive Lincolnshire countryside on a colossal scale.
We have the Labour voters of Doncaster North to thank for giving us this madman.
I hope the next big solar array will be in their neck of the woods, with wind turbines erected throughout the constituency. Serve them right.
And what is solar’s contribution now? A BIG FAT ZERO.
The mad Millibrain is a blithering idiot.
No Sun at all this week, so it wouldn’t produce anything for 300,000 houses would it. The man is insane.
To minimise transmission costs, and to maintain a viable food producing industry, solar and wind farms should be sited as close as possible to where the demand is, such as in city parks, e.g. Hyde Park, Regents Park, Hampstead Heath and Primrose Hill, close to where Ed Miliband lives.
Exactly. They could put the panels on overhead gantries so that the people can still exercise in the parks. They’d have to do without plants, trees, insects and birds, of course, but I’m sure the green brigade would be happy with that. (They seem to think renewable energy is more important than living things, including people.)
Here’s a thought. You can’t build residential developments on agricultural land. So you requisition the land and build a solar farm on it instead. Panels are lifed at 15 years. So when the solar panels reach their Use By date the land becomes a brownfield site. Which means it can be bought cheaply and used to build residential devopment at maximum profit. 🤔
Mad Ed is getting nasty now…..
Lock him up, lock him up!!!!
Reform controls Lincolnshire Council as well as the regional Mayor.
They should do everything in their power to prevent this from proceeding. Closing the roads to the site for “essential maintenance” would be a start.
Today gas is providing 65% of our electricity needs (34gw), wind 8% and PV 1%. Similar story these past few days.
Idiot Mllibrain is wanting 57gW from solar. Occasionally, in summer, they might produce this but 25gW will need shutting down and will make our grid very unstable.Solar farms will be paid for not producing.
These people should be locked up for treason.
This latest idiotic scheme is against the wishes of the County and local authorities and hence the local population. This makes Millibrain a tyrannical despot.
They are not farms, but farm destroyers.
With Miliband destroying our energy infrastructure (and industry more widely), Reeves destroying the finances, Mahmood overseeing the loss of border security, foreign spies being let off the hook and Starmer cosying up to terrorists, it’s hard to be optimistic about the next four years. Will we even get the chance to vote for a Reform govenment in the next election, or will it be cancelled for “national security” reasons?
so energy security (!) but not food security?
The crime here – for indeed it is a crime – is not that electricity generation from solar cells is inefficient (which it is), but that valuable and necessary arable and grazing land is being sequestered and this nation’s ability to supply its need of good, wholesome food is under threat.
This is nothing less than a multi-pronged attack on life and civilisation itself – the third horseman. As I understand it the Gates Foundation is now the largest owner of farmland across the United States. In parallel with making a land-grab by the elite and mega-corporations, there is a systematic onslaught against traditional farmers. Here in the UK, our Government has declared war on farmers through the new inheritance imposition, their margins are restrained by the large supermarkets and there will be a move towards imposition of controlled food-stuffs.
I hope that the next Government takes power before this calamity is allowed to unfold. Let our farms produce food – good food. Let us also hope that Miliband be put on trial for the wanton criminal damage he’s wrought upon our beautiful land.