The UK government’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has published a strategy paper in which it notes that renewables, housebuilding and food production “are not competing demands”.
In a foreword to the first official Land Use Framework for England, published by Defra on 18 March, environment secretary Emma Reynolds said: “We have enough land to build the homes needed to address the housing crisis, maintain domestic food production, restore nature at scale, and build clean, homegrown power to provide energy security.”
The framework document, which Reynolds noted is not a replacement for the planning system (which has been refreshed in recent years to give weighting to renewable development) but should provide “every farmer, whether owner or tenant, the rights, data and certainty to invest [in land] with confidence”.
Compared with the other options (such as housing) covered by the Land Use Framework, solar can be developed alongside farming—the practice of grazing livestock around ground-mounted solar PV panels, agrivoltaics, is commonly used worldwide.
The framework also notes the biodiversity benefit offered by solar developments. One of the key principles Defra said it will follow in determining the best use of land is multifunctionality.
It said that land use should be planned and managed to deliver ‘benefits across a range of outcomes’, citing solar generation designed to enable restoration of upland peatlands to reduce carbon emissions, store water and provide biodiverse habitats as an example of this.
Responding to the document, chief executive of solar trade body Solar Energy UK (SEUK) Chris Hewett said: “The framework underlines that the government’s plans for housing, energy, food, climate change and nature all necessitate changes to how land is used across England.
“This means that more efficient use is paramount – and solar is one of the most effective, efficient and diversified uses of land available.”
However, it is worth noting that (as SEUK stresses), the actual amount of land taken up by renewable generation is comparably low.
SEUK uses the below graphic, using data from Natural England, to demonstrate this.
Image: Solar Energy UK.
Future outlook for solar land use
Defra’s report projects that by 2030, when the government is targeting an energy system powered largely by renewables (95%), solar and wind will remain a small proportion of land use.
By 2050, when the Paris Agreement should mean the UK achieves net zero emissions, strategic spatial planning (with the first ever Strategic Spatial Energy Plan due late 2027) “will ensure a fairer and more efficient distribution of solar and wind infrastructure across England,” the framework said.
Defra did note that in the consultancy preceding the framework, it heard from communities in the North East of England that large solar plants are “expected to change the farming landscape”.
The rhetoric that large scale solar developments are a threat to rural communities has been taken on by anti-renewables political parties, using the energy transition as a means by which to mobilise against the current government.
However, as Defra’s paper notes, local clean energy offers benefits to communities, monetary and otherwise. Reports previously cited by Solar Power Portal note that public buy-in generally increases amongst those living near existing solar plants, suggesting that the impact is lower than typically feared.
Defra also said that on a national level, solar plants are “small land use changes in percentage terms,” again stating the potential for farming to continue alongside solar.
It also noted the benefit of rooftop solar PV in urban and suburban areas, which it said have the highest demands on our energy system and as such “need to be powered locally and sustainably”.
Taking up the rejoinder popular amongst critics of large scale solar development, Defra said: “By deploying technologies such as rooftop solar, we can make use of existing built land for electricity generation, reducing pressures for land for renewables in other areas.”
SEUK also took interest in the measure included in the framework to offer free access to data on larger properties for free, saying this could “in principle” accelerate the first stages of solar development “by making it quicker and easier to identify the owners of appropriate locations with access to the grid”.
That acceleration is the aim of Australian company RELA, which just launched its RELA Prepay offer in the UK market.
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