Two more solar farms go live

Two more Cornish solar farms will be switched on today, just in time to beat the Government’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) deadline.

7,098 solar panels were installed by Thermavolt at a ten-acre site at Benbole, while a 5mw project at Hawton Farm, consisting of 17,856 panels, has been built by Oskamera Solar Power Solutions UK.

It has been a race against time for both sites, with the FIT being dramatically slashed for 50kw+ installations set up after August 1.

Both new facilities were developed by Lightsource Renewable Energy with financing managed through Octopus Investments.

Lightsource’s CEO Nicholas Boyle commented: “Getting all of this generation capacity online before the August deadline was a considerable achievement and it is a real credit to all parties involved.”

Cornwall’s renewable energy industry is discussed in detail in the August/September issue of Business Cornwall magazine, out next week