Construction at Cleve Hill Solar Park, between Faversham and Whitstable, set to begin this year
Published: 06:00, 13 January 2021
Construction of the UK s biggest solar farm is planned to begin this year - but not before finishing touches to the controversially-approved scheme are confirmed.
Developers behind the mammoth 900-acre project in Graveney, between Faversham and Whitstable, were originally hoping to get work started this spring.
A section of the Cleve Hill site which will be developed on. Picture: Brian Jefferys
But the firm behind it, Cleve Hill Solar Park Limited, now gives a much more vague timescale - suggesting work installing the 880,000 panels will not begin until nearer the end of 2021.
Author: Lauren Cook
In this blog, analyst for Solar Media s in-house market research Lauren Cook detailed how 1.3GW of battery storage were at the ready-to-build stage and could come to fruition in 2020 and 2021, with nearly 300MW of utility scale battery storage deployed in 2019. The blog shows how the average size for projects at the ready-to-build stage was 26MW, up from 20MW for projects completed in 2019. This, Cook said, reflected a large number of projects of 49.9MW that were being proposed, in addition to a wide range of smaller project sizes and batteries co-located with renewables.
The blog also details the impacts of changes such as battery storage being able to participate in the Balancing Mechanism for the first time, opening up new revenue streams for projects and bringing new companies into the market.
Government ponders 120GW of solar to help reach net-zero
On the same day that the Energy White Paper was unveiled, the Government also launched a new consultation on how financing and deployment of renewable technologies can accelerate action towards net-zero, with up to 120GW of solar capacity mooted as a means to quadruple green energy nationally.
Under some scenarios being explored by the Government, solar PV capacity could reach between 80-120GW of capacity
The Government has launched a consultation to gain views on how renewables deployment can be accelerated in the UK. The call for evidence, which runs until 22 February, notes that renewables generation could see total capacity quadruple by 2050.