Bloomfield Hatch solar farm sees slow progress

West Berkshire Council is inching its way towards building a new solar farm.

It is trying to gauge technical details, interest – and costs – from potential suppliers – ahead of the tendering process.

Last year, the authority granted itself planning permission for a 30.5 hectare solar farm on council-owned land at Bloomfield Hatch Farm.

Projected costs from the initial proposal of £10m have gone up by more than £6m – although the council says when built, it will have the capacity to power the equivalent of more than 4,000 homes for the next 30 years.

It says with the detailed design progressing well, its next step is to build up a clearer picture of what the current marketplace looks like so it can choose the most suitable method of procurement when tenders are invited later this year to appoint a contractor to start construction late next year.

It is using the Early Market Engagement (EME) process to inform suppliers, aiming to gather information on likely construction costs, market interest, and available equipment configurations, to bring the project to the market later this year.

Adrian Abbs (Lib Dem, Wash Common) executive member for climate action, recycling and biodiversity at West Berkshire Council, said: “A significant amount of work has been done as part of the council’s goal to construct this solar farm project and we are excited to invite tenders from suitably qualified organisations to help us undertake the next steps of creating a large solar farm in West Berkshire.

“We are looking forward to bringing this online as soon as practicable.”

The original business plan for the 75-acre site has also been changed, meaning the council wants to put in a bigger connection – which costs more – and make more money.

Despite the impact of interest rates, rising material costs and other detrimental factors, the council said earlier this year that the latest business case, produced under the previous Tory administration, demonstrates that the provision of a solar farm at Grazeley is still a financially and environmentally viable proposition.

Officers will be asked to construct a deal, potentially with AWE at Burghfield, which it is claimed could create around £3m in income, and allow West Berkshire to claim a 37 per cent reduction in its carbon footprint.

There are no publicly available documents to show if this has progressed.

A report to the exectuive committee in December last year said the rise in energy prices has meant that the rate of return for the project has risen from the 2020 figure of four per cent to between 5.62 per cent and 7.60 per cent.

No up to date figures have been released on this.

Two potential grid connection options are available to the council, the choice of which could have an impact on the scheme economics.

The cheaper option – costing £14.98m would involve laying a cable beneath the highway between the site and a point designated by SSE – a distance of approximately 3.4km.

Negotiations are under way with landowners to agree to shorten the route and reduce the amount of hard dig, however the worst case scenario along the road has been assumed for this business case.

The second, more expensive option, at £16.3m is connecting into the grid via AWE’s Burghfield substation.

The council says informal discussions have taken place with both AWE and SSE which have indicated this may be feasible.

It says AWE have also expressed an interest in purchasing green energy locally.

The difference in cost from the grid option is due to a slightly shorter cabling distance to the AWE site, but there is a £1.5m addition due to potential work required to connect to the grid through AWE.

Early informal discussions indicate that AWE’s power requirements are such that they could potentially take approximately 73 per cent of the generated energy from the Grazeley site, with the remainder being exported to the grid.

Power supply agreements are more than 30 years and involve the purchase of power for a fixed price.

This gives the council security of income for the 30-year life of the solar farm and generates savings for AWE in that they will receive relatively cheap green energy for that time.

Consideration is being given to using the solar farm for sheep farming during its life.

The proposed scheme design also includes additional tree and hedge planting, the creation of ponds and seeding with wildflower seed-mix, and seeding for winter birds.

The scheme will also include the installation of bird and bat boxes across the site.