NEWS POST: Are Solar Farms The Answer To The Energy Crisis?

Solar energy has continually been on the increase and has even become a competitive industry, particularly between the economic powerhouses and those looking to hit the targets imposed on them by the Kyoto Protocol. Investment and development is growing worldwide as well as nationally as businesses, governments and home now look to take advantage of this huge natural resource and fight against rising gas and electricity prices. 

A Growing Trend In Renewable Energy

Borrego Solar recently reported that between 2013 and 2018, photovoltaic energy (that’s energy harness from the sun to you and me) is set to represent revenue of $540 billion (£357 billion) globally. One of the reasons for this is that the cost for photovoltaic energy has decreased by almost 50%. Which in turn not only helps the supply chains across the US, China, Japan and EU; but is also helping the consumer as the cost for investing in solar energy is reduced and the margins for potential financial gain are increased. 

Governments have been pushing for the implementation of solar energy sources for the greener good, in particular the UK with the Feed In tariff  (FIT) and President Obama with his “We Can’t Wait” campaign. However, Mike Hall (CEO of Borrego Solar Systems) is right on the money in saying that pure hard cash is the driving factor for the increase in solar energy in the past five years. 

Government and greener energy schemes aside, the reason commercial industries and even residents of the UK are purchasing solar panels is because in the long term, it will save them money. Let’s face it, over the past seven years we have definitely been a country that has been prioritising cutting costs and saving our pennies wherever we can. So the possibility of reducing the balance on our utility bills each quarter is certainly appealing.

Solar Farms

The growing trend in the UK is farms, and I don’t mean the agricultural kind as Leicestershire this year becomes home to the largest solar farm in the UK.The development of the solar farm on the former World War II Airfield in Wymeswold, was commissioned and completed in April 2013 by Lark Energy whom over the past two years have been focusing efforts on a variety of 60MWp projects. 

This particular farm is set across 150 acres of land with around 130,000 solar panels. The cost of this project was £35 million so it will be interesting to hear reports in a year’s time of the amount of energy this farm alone has produced. 

It seems though that it isn’t only solar panel contractors and industry leaders setting the solar farm trend. The BBC recently reported that Edinburgh College created a five acre solar panel meadow with more than 2,500 photovoltaic panels. The main purpose of producing this farm is to reduce the college’s energy costs, supporting Mike Hall’s theory that cost matters. This project provided a double edge sword for the college, who were able to educate their engineering students as well as generating enough energy to power 170 homes.

There are also plans for a solar panel farm in Cornwall which is said will generate enough solar energy to power 1,500 homes in the UK. As long as industry leaders can continue to demonstrate that the implementation of these farms will not cause a detrimental effect on their local surroundings, then soon enough we could farming sunlight rather than spuds.

Regeneration

It’s not only businesses and homes that are getting a greener outlook on life, older buildings are now either being recycled or refurbished to fit in with modern ways of producing energy as The National Trust has begun a project to help make listed buildings more cost efficient to run. As well as this the UK government is now offering a 12% return on their F.I.T scheme.

It seems that the demand of solar energy is not just benefiting our environment and wallets, but it is also helping to provide employment opportunities. As with any industry, the higher in demand, the more they expand, the more people they need to recruit.

An Eyesore For The Greater Good

The only negativity in the discussion, both online and offline surrounding solar farms is that people they aren’t exactly pleasing on the eye. This has caused great discontent with old fuddy duddies and those looking to preserve the Great Britain’s great green garden. 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, with the criticism that the solar industry has received for their plans to provide us with a cheaper energy source, you would think the public were under the impression that in not so many years to come, the satellite picture of earth would just be one big reflective solar panel.

This is simply not the case. Whilst the trend for solar panel farms is not by any means close to an end, the goal of the solar energy industry is not to disrupt our natural environment, it’s to save it. Each new generation is being taught about how to make improve our living conditions and practices for a greener planet. Whether you like the look of them or not, it’s becoming increasingly likely solar power is the future of our energy resources