As energy costs soar – here comes the sun

But changes are afoot. Quietly and without fuss over the last few decades, electricity-generating solar panels have crept across the nation's roofs, not least those of farm buildings, and as this market has bulked up to enable mass manufacture, the technology has been finessed, whilst becoming cheaper, making the addition of panels to new-builds the rule, rather than the exception.

On farm, the early pioneers of larger field-mounted solar arrays are now set to reap the rewards of their foresight, as the call goes out from Government for large-scale domestic sources of power that can help fill the hole in the country's energy mix left by the turning off of Russia's gas taps, as Ukraine burns and the old 'buy it wherever it is cheapest' globalisation model goes into hard reverse.

Boring old solar, turning free photons from above into electricity – with systems so low maintenance that the only tool they are likely to see year-to-year is a wet brush – suddenly looks like a safe bet in an uncertain world.

It is against that background that Strathruddie farm, just outside Kinglassie, in Fife, is now in the happy position of holding planning permission – granted by Fife Council in a unanimous vote – for a 115-acre ground-mounted solar array, and associated battery storage development, with respective capacities of 25 and 20megawatts, which more or less equates to the amount of electricity needed to power 7000 homes for the next 30 or 40 years, without emitting the 440,000 tonnes of CO2 that generating that electricity with fossil fuels would produce.

Modern ground-mounted solar arrays work perfectly well on a dull Scottish spring day Ref:RH070422023 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer

Strathruddie's project is the first to be seen over the line by Renewable Connections, a relatively new company that is now actively seeking many more sites for similarly scaled solar projects, arguing strongly that the combination of a mature technology and an eager market for its output should make ground-mounted solar a diversification option that every landowner should at the very least consider.

When The Scottish Farmer met with Strathruddie's owner, Robin Drysdale, and Renewable Connections Scottish development manager, John Lindsay, to discuss the green-lit project, they agreed that the simplicity of the arrangement they had entered into should appeal to a whole lot of other landowners looking for a low risk route into renewable energy.

Mr Drysdale's business is largely in hay and silage contracting, with his machines kept on the neat steading at Strathruddie, sat alongside a pretty landscaped pond, and encircled by grass fields mainly used for producing haylage for equestrian customers. With an eye on retirement, and the burgeoning costs of contracting versus the limited returns, Mr Drysdale will this year take what will probably be the last crops of haylage off those fields, in expectation of the ground-mounted solar arrays starting to go in next summer, eventually encircling the farm.

In the Kinglassie area, other members of Mr Drysdale's extended family have already installed ground-mounted solar, some of it under the auspices of Mr Lindsay before he joined Renewable Connections, and those projects are now ticking over unobtrusively, making both power and money. Their quiet success can't have escaped Robin's attention as he considered his options for the future of Strathruddie.

Modern ground-mounted solar arrays work perfectly well on a dull Scottish spring day Ref:RH070422023 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer

John, a chartered surveyor and former rural estate manager for Taymount Estate in Perthshire, first walked into the Strathruddie steading office to open discussions about a solar installation in August 2020, and just 18 months later, the planning permission was in the bag. “We are delighted to have achieved our first ever consent in Scotland," he declared. "These consents aren’t just a win for Renewable Connections but also the Scottish consumer. We need to deploy more home grown energy, in order to achieve more sustainable energy pricing and long term energy security. Solar is one of the cleanest, lowest cost forms of energy available and can be quickly deployed.”

But it will be summer 2023 before building work starts because of one limiting factor – the grid connection. As with all renewable energy projects designed at a scale intended to make enough energy to sell it into the public network, access to that grid is pivotal to the viability of the installation. Robin and John count themselves fortunate to have secured a grid connection which will go live in March 2024, and works will now proceed to meet that date with Strathruddie Solar Farm ready to switch on.

An undoubted advantage that ground mounted solar has over windpower is that it can be installed near population centres without stirring up the visual impact and noise objections that leave turbine applications agonising over sightlines and minimum distance to the nearest open bedroom window. Where there are populations, there are grid connections, in particular substations, and in Strathruddie's case, that is two kilometres away at the Westfield substation, an acceptable cost to bear for a project with a 30-year lifespan, and two further five-year extensions possible.

THE PANELS are mounted on a pile-driven frame, with plenty of room for sheep underneath Ref:RH070422021 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

Not that Robin's hand will go into his pocket. What he brings to the deal is the land and the location, for which he will receive a guaranteed rent, index-linked from year one, so his returns will move in step with the energy market. The actual level of rent is, as John notes, 'commercially sensitive', but also 'healthy and attractive'. As a ballpark figure, he suggested that you consider the profit margin you might expect to take off a good grass field and multiply it by the order of five to seven times.

John's company is involved as the setter-upper, finding the sites, designing their lay-out, securing permissions and overseeing installation. The project costs themselves are covered by European Energy, a Danish firm with investment capital tilted towards renewable energy projects, which has quite rightly recognised that the climatic and geographic conditions in Scotland are similar enough to Denmark's to make solar projects here and there work very much along the same lines. As John stresses, photo-voltaic solar is not dependent on direct sunlight – daylight alone provides enough photons to let the panels do their magic. On the same latitude, Denmark already has three to four times as many operational solar panels as Scotland.

The thing is, once the ground is committed, the permission granted and the finance allocated, the installation of the actual panels is not a big deal. Unlike wind turbines, they don't require concrete foundations – instead they are mounted on simple pile-driven poles. The Strathruddie permission allows for either fixed panels, or panels mounted on a horizontal pivot that allows them to track the sun, but the decision which to opt for is still to be made. Either way, it is not rocket science – as farmers will perhaps recognise, its a big field of silicon and metal leaves, soaking up the sun. Line them up, space them out, they'll do their job. As for the wiring, anyone familiar with Christmas lights won't feel intimidated. The units are linked along each row, feeding into a larger ground cable at the the end, which takes the DC power generated by the photovoltaic cells off to an inverter that switches it to AC, ready to join the AC flow in the grid. The inverter is the largest 'building' associated with the solar farm, but that is still not much larger than a shipping container.

GROUND-MOUNTED solar is usually fenced off, but has to be secured with due care for the free movement of wildlife Ref:RH070422194 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer

After tea and biscuits at the steading, we headed up for a look at the nearby ground-mounted solar array installed in 2016 via Mr Lindsay, and were immediately struck by both how new the panels and mounts still looked, and how healthy the grass underneath them was. The panel rows are surprisingly widely spaced, with ample room for a tractor and mower to run between each, but equally, the grazing is clearly more than adequate for sheep, who reportedly also enjoy the shelter afforded by the panels. The effect is not, as I was expecting, a shadowed bare field with a solid roof over it, but rather more like an optical illusion – a normal pasture with waves of mirrors sweeping along above.

Renewable Connections has five consents secured, including Strathruddie, with three more in the pipeline – but Mr Lindsay is now keen to hear from other landowners interested in helping increase Scotland's panel count a bit closer to Denmark's.

"The message is I will look anywhere," he said. "Typically, 100 to 120 acres is what we need, on fairly flat, or slightly sloping land, but depending on the circumstances, and especially the availability of grid connection, smaller sites might be of interest. "All I need is a postcode and a site boundary, and I can get started with assessing suitability. Scotland currently has 350mw of solar – but there is potential for four gigawatts at least. This really is something that many farmers should be able to benefit from."

For more information go to: www.strathruddiesolarfarm.co.uk