Does anybody here take the Greens seriously?

[Pross]

Surely brownfield can have any slope (facing any direction or flat), just as arable land?

For developers it's not an either/or when it comes to brownfield vs arable as plenty of farmers happy to sell arable for development (at above arable land prices) and just leave brownfield as unused. Planners seem happy to approve development on arable land as they can only respond to applications and can't say "why not build it on this brownfield site".

In general, if someone has previously developed a site they will have levelled it first so sloping sites are few and far between. Also, if competing for sites with housing developers I would guess that a company developing a solar farm will lose out as they won't be able to generate as much income from it as the house builder. In general I believe they lease the land they build on rather than purchasing.

 

[bobzmyunkle]

but for agricultural production I'm confused.

Please don't come on here being confused. Much better to have an uninformed opinion, especially if you can use it to criticise the Green party. (To be clear that's not a dig at you).
By the way, I'm generally in favour of solar farms. But maybe they would be better located on a vast, sparsely polluted, sun scorch plain in say Spain or north Africa.

 

[briantrumpet]

Please don't come on here being confused. Much better to have an uninformed opinion, especially if you can use it to criticise the Green party. (To be clear that's not a dig at you).
By the way, I'm generally in favour of solar farms. But maybe they would be better located on a vast, sparsely polluted, sun scorch plain in say Spain or north Africa.

FTR, I'm criticising the Green Party because I think it's important, and I want it to be greener and do better.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Please don't come on here being confused. Much better to have an uninformed opinion, especially if you can use it to criticise the Green party. (To be clear that's not a dig at you).
By the way, I'm generally in favour of solar farms. But maybe they would be better located on a vast, sparsely polluted, sun scorch plain in say Spain or north Africa.

Morocco understands that and has recently completed a huge solar farm.

Given hotter summers, copying Europe by having covered parking in supermarkets with solar on top should be a priority, as should covering the rooves of suitable commercial buildings. Those should be the priorities ahead of covering the coutryside, those we will still need rural solar farms as well.

 

[bobzmyunkle]

Morocco understands that and has recently completed a huge solar farm.

Given hotter summers, copying Europe by having covered parking in supermarkets with solar on top should be a priority, as should covering the rooves of suitable commercial buildings. Those should be the priorities ahead of covering the coutryside, those we will still need rural solar farms as well.

Not to mention all those new builds houses the govt insists we need. If we have to build semi detached boxes all over the Green Belt, at least legislate to have a minimum standard of solar on them. And orientate them to make it effective. The developers might whine, but even the Telegraph will be on board soon.

 

[the snail]

The examples in the article cite cases where the solar farms are on land that wasn't part of the farm so becomes additional grazing area rather than taking land from being cultivated to being grazed solar farm.

Similarly, saving solar operators from mowing grass does not help arable productivity.

I'm certainly not anti (in many situations I'd be supporting). Also properly managed solar farms will normally increase biodiversity and increased populations (something I'd be supporting above agricultural productivity).

It's pretty much irrelevant. The amount of land used for renewables is a tiny fraction of the total Even with the projected rollout, we'll be at a similar total to that used for golf courses. And a lot of agricultural land is used for livestock, rather than arable. So in terms of productivity, there would be far bigger gains by moving away from livestock production. Renewables are basically a rounding error in terms of land use - climate change will have a much bigger affect.

 

[Pross]

Not to mention all those new builds houses the govt insists we need. If we have to build semi detached boxes all over the Green Belt, at least legislate to have a minimum standard of solar on them. And orientate them to make it effective. The developers might whine, but even the Telegraph will be on board soon.

Wales, as always, is ahead and this is already coming into force in January

 

[Mr Celine]

By the way, I'm generally in favour of solar farms. But maybe they would be better located on a vast, sparsely polluted, sun scorch plain in say Spain or north Africa.

Even if there were sufficient grid capacity the transmission losses over that distance would be significant. They could be reduced by using HVDC transmission, in which case I suggest locating the DC to AC converter station at Sevenoaks.

 

[matticus]

I don't think Brownfield is as suitable for solar. I'm certainly no expert and Purple Penguin probably knows more but I always though a sloping, generally southwards facing site tends to give the best efficiency. Brownfield tends to be flat so panels would get less sun otherwise I'd have thought they be popular for solar farms as they would need to do less remediation than, say, residential where the clean up costs cn be prohibitive and they would also generally have good existing access.

Solar farms are all over the flatlands round here. They just put up the panels at an angle!

 

[Pross]

Solar farms are all over the flatlands round here. They just put up the panels at an angle!

I don't think they're as efficient though and gently sloping sites are best (Purple Penguin is the expert on this though).

 

[laurentian]

Morocco understands that and has recently completed a huge solar farm.

This one? Saw it from the road we were travelling along and took a detour to see it in March. Hundreds of panels reflecting the sunlight up to the top of that tower. The light at the top was brighter than the sun - it's quite something.

 

[Cirrus]

This one? Saw it from the road we were travelling along and took a detour to see it in March. Hundreds of panels reflecting the sunlight up to the top of that tower. The light at the top was brighter than the sun - it's quite something.

View attachment 16670

007 should have no problem finding the baddies…,

 

[icowden]

By the way, I'm generally in favour of solar farms. But maybe they would be better located on a vast, sparsely polluted, sun scorch plain in say Spain or north Africa.

Given that we now have our own sun scorched plains, it would make more sense to be building huge elevated solar arrays to benefit from Agrivoltaics.

The solar panels provide shade, encourage crops by helping plants retain moisture and also help the insects etc.

 

[bobzmyunkle]

Given that we now have our own sun scorched plains, it would make more sense to be building huge elevated solar arrays to benefit from Agrivoltaics.

The solar panels provide shade, encourage crops by helping plants retain moisture and also help the insects etc.

Come on Burnham. Legislate. Obviously not so quickly that the legislation is flawed.

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

Given that we now have our own sun scorched plains, it would make more sense to be building huge elevated solar arrays to benefit from Agrivoltaics.

The solar panels provide shade, encourage crops by helping plants retain moisture and also help the insects etc.

and/or considering we already have the water filtration systems that can use seawater to convert it into river water maybe he shoud nog ask but demand water companies to use those and not say "it's to expensive" while laughing to the bang to pay the shareholders bonusses.