dirtysolar

How the government is undermining solar – again | Greenpeace UK

In our campaign against a huge industrial solar power station, we have carefully explained that we’re not anti-solar. Indeed, we believe that solar, done well, should be supported. Placing solar on brownfield sites and on rooftops is the obvious way to go, rather than allowing speculators to destroy our green countryside. It’s one of the differences between good solar and #dirtysolar.

A recent article from Greenpeace shows that solar on rooftops is also well-supported by the public:

“A recent survey showed 62% of UK households want to install solar panels on their homes”

via How the government is undermining solar – again | Greenpeace UK

But the article goes on to explain that the government is proposing scrapping a scheme that encourages this:

The government are proposing removal of the export tariff, the money given to householders with solar panels for the electricity they provide to the grid. This means that, without a replacement payment or policy, families wouldn’t sell the excess electricity they generate, they’d have to give it away. They’d effectively be subsidising the Big Five (formerly Six) by giving it to them to sell. Those wanting to do their bit for the new, clean technologies we need to save our climate will be handing their electricity as a free subsidy to the big multinationals, propping up the system we need to replace. The exact opposite of what subsidies are supposed to do.

If you’re quick, you can sign the Greenpeace petition to tell the UK government that this is a terrible idea: https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/s/stop-the-solar-attack

Devil in the detail

If you haven’t yet read all 2,303 pages of the PEIR, then here are 46 easy-to-access snippets of content from the ‘Volume IIA Figures’ report.

The Cleve Hill Mega Battery proposal

Is this proposal a ‘greenwash’ for hiding the fact that Cleve Hill Solar Park are really intending to build the world’s biggest battery?

Is this ‘Sea of Plastic’ our future too?

Have you heard of the ‘Sea of Plastic’ that surrounds the Spanish city of El Ejido? It’s on the southern coast of Spain opposite Morocco, and shows what happens when commercial interests take over the countryside. 

As high as a double-decker bus

The east-west layout is one of the many important elements of this proposal that needs to be understood. It is favoured by the developers because it affords a denser layout of panels, covering more of … Read more

82 green transformer cabins

There could be around 82 transformer cabins on the site. These are each half the size of a shipping container and could be situated on top of rafts.

East/west oriented solar panels

The impact of orienting solar panels in a dense east/west orientation would provide more profit for the developer, but at what cost to the environment?

“We just realised how much more we could get”

The developers now expect to fit more than 1 million panels onto the 400-hectare site. “We just realised how much more we could get on the site for an east-west layout,” Hive’s Hugh Brennan said.