UK's biggest solar farm connects to national grid

[3rdRock]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ional-grid

The biggest solar farm in the UK, capable of powering 14,000 homes a year, has been connected to the national grid in Oxfordshire.

The 46MW Landmead solar farm, in East Hanney near Abingdon, is built on low-grade farmland used for grazing sheep, which will remain along with new wildflowers to be planted as part of efforts to improve the site’s biodiversity.

[adam2]

That should save significant natural gas that would otherwise be burnt for power generation.
I do however have reservations about use of agricultural land for power production. Whilst the land can still be used for sheep grazing, this must surely be at lower stocking density than without the PV modules.

Growing grass is in effect a natural solar collector, with much of the sunlight captured by the modules, then less grass will grow and fewer sheep can be grazed.
OTOH, the modules will provide welcome shade for the animals in hot weather, and a little protection from heavy snow.

Sheep or other grazing animals are in fact almost a requirement for ground mounted PV arrays since otherwise grass and other vegetation will grow high enough to shade the modules.

[biffvernon]

14,000 homes a year

A year? Another journalist demonstrates failure to understand physical units.

[Mr. Fox]

Come on, Biff... Keep up! Everyone knows that electricity is now measured in 'Households per year', just like the standard unit of mass is now 'elephants' or 'jumbo jets', distance is in 'football fields' and water is measured in 'olympic-sized swimming pools'.

Regarding grazing animals, we used geese! They keep the grass down (sorta) and provide security. Lots of security.

[RenewableCandy]

Oh yes Security Geese are definitely a thing. Ask anybody at the University of York

[biffvernon]

Come on, Biff... Keep up! Everyone knows that electricity is now measured in 'Households per year', just like the standard unit of mass is now 'elephants'

I don't mind households, it's the 'per year' bit that confuses. It would be like weighing something in elephants per second.

[Mr. Fox]

Lol... well they've actually corrected it, now it reads "capable of powering 14,000 homes, has been connected..."

Well, almost... there's still the line "The company has 10 solar farms in the UK, which it says are enough to power 40,000 homes a year, with another 10 in progress..."

Oh, they say that, do they?

I get annoyed when anybody uses 'homes' to measure PV output at all. More accurate would be to say "..not capable of powering any homes at 6pm on a January evening", but I doubt they'll want to correct it twice.

[Catweazle]

Perhaps the Householdyear is a measurement akin to the KWhour.

After all, they could have claimed that the solar farm produced enough power in a year to supply a million homes ( for a week ), or the whole of the UK ( for an hour )