Gaelectric has secured planning approval for a 4.9MW solar farm at Inishative near Pomeroy in County Tyrone. In a first for Northern Ireland, this solar farm will comprise ground mounted PV (photo-voltaic) panels co-located next to the site of Gaelectric’s Inishative Wind Farm which is currently under construction and due to commence generation in 2016. The electricity generation capacity of Inishative Solar Farm will meet the equivalent energy needs of approximately 1,175 homes with clean, green electricity.
Commenting, Gaelectric Development Director, Mike Denny, said: “Co-locating wind and solar generation on the same site makes sense. Solar and wind have complementary generation profiles. Solar tends to be strongest during the longer and brighter days of late spring, summer and early autumn when the wind tends to blow less. Wind on good sites blows most of the time, but more consistently from late autumn right through to the springtime. In this way the profiles of solar and wind generation complement each other, helping us use limited grid capacity and other essential infrastructure more efficiently, and significantly reducing environmental impacts into the bargain.”
Gaelectric has put in place a community fund for Inishative Solar Farm which will contribute up to £150,000 over the lifetime of the project. In total, the Inishative Solar Farm will contribute over £3m at today’s prices to the local and wider economy in Northern Ireland, throughout its construction and operational phases.
Gaelectric is seeking approval to modify its existing grid connection agreement with Northern Ireland Electricity to facilitate co-locating this solar development. Commenting further, Mike Denny said: “It is important that the NIE/SONI consultation on grid connections for renewable energy allows the modification of existing and paid for connection agreements, and avoids delays in co-locating solar projects that do not require any increase in the maximum export capacity of existing connections.”
The Alternative Connection Application and Offer Process Proposal (March 2016) from NIE/SONI proposes that applications to over-install generation at the maximum export capacity (“MEC”) of an existing grid connection would be included in the ‘batching’ process proposed by NIE/SONI. Under this proposal all applications in the ‘batch’ are assessed and awarded connections together. Gaelectric is seeking a derogation from ‘batching’ for co-locating solar projects with wind where the maximum export capacity of the existing grid connection is not being exceeded.
