Anglesey Votes to Join the Solar Park Generation

For better or worse, we have got used to seeing large wind farms dotted around our coast and countryside with their large wind turbines threshing the air (or not on the occasions when they are not working.) We are told that this is the future of renewable energy, and they are increasingly being joined by what are known as solar parks, these being large areas of land covered in solar panels.

Now Anglesey, a popular holiday destination in North Wales has voted to join this next generation of clean energy creation, by voting their approval of a proposal to establish a seventy acre, 64,000 solar panelled park on the Bordogan Estate on farmland near Aberffraw, on Anglesey.

Solar panels are to be spread on a plot spanning 28 football pitches worth of land that would see sheep graze in between the 10x3 metre rows of panels. The area for the scheme would be bigger than two other Welsh solar farm projects combined that have recently been approved in Pembrokeshire - at Clawddcam, Mathry, and St Florence, near Tenby.

Bodorgan Environmental Management Ltd say the project will generate 15 megawatts (MW) of electricity or enough to power 4,500 homes annually and connect to the national grid via existing overhead power lines. Tim Bowie, agent for the landowners of the site the Bodorgan Estate, said the building work for the project could be complete within three months.

The Bodorgan Estate is owned by Sir George Meyrick and Lady Jean Taps Gervis Meyrick, the niece of the Duke of Buccleuch. The family is descended from both the sovereign Princes of Wales and from King Edward I and have owned the estate for over 1,000 years.

Mr Bowie said: “We have an issue that wind is not popular - there are strong objections to the turbines, particularly around certain parts of the island. “This has the advantage of meeting some of the island’s energy requirements, but without all the attendant problems of wind.”

The site is currently used for silage, cattle and grazing sheep. The sheep’s grazing will help manage the land - avoiding the need for mowing the grass in between the panels.

In September, Pembrokeshire approved the projects at Clawddcam, and St Florence, with a generating capacity of around 12.5MW of electricity, using 55,680 panels. The Anglesey site will use 64,000 panels.

Pembrokeshire became the first council in Wales to grant planning permission for a solar farm - at Rhos-y-Gilwen Mansion, in the north of the county, in January 2011. The project - currently the largest of its kind in Wales - was up and running and connected to the national grid within seven months Almost 10,000 solar panels were imported from the United States and placed in 12 lines in a six-acre field.

Leader of Anglesey council, Bryan Owen, said the farm on Anglesey will be the first on the island and forms part of its attempt to brand itself as an “energy island”. It’s a mix that we’re looking for. We’ve got wind, solar, bio-mass, nuclear, and off-shore. “We don’t want to throw all our eggs into one basket, that is, nuclear or wind turbines.”

This aims to put Anglesey at the forefront of energy research and development in nuclear, wind, tidal, biomass and solar.

In December the UK Government updated its renewable energy roadmap to include solar panels as a technology it regards as key to meeting its renewable energy targets.

The Government has a target of sourcing 15% of the nation’s overall energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Read more: Wales Online