90-acre solar farm planned near Bournemouth Airport (From Bournemouth Echo)
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90-acre solar farm planned near Bournemouth Airport
5:00pm Thursday 20th September 2012 in News
Trelawney Dampney at Eco Sustainable Solutions
GREEN entrepreneur Trelawney Dampney is planning a £50 million expansion to the green business he started from a tiny plot of land.
The Parley businessman has three major new plans, including one of the biggest solar farms in the country, for Eco Sustainable Solutions near Bournemouth Airport .
He started the firm 19 years ago and it recycles green waste, soil and food on behalf of Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole Councils.
He now wants planning permission for hundreds of six foot high solar panels on a company-owned grazing field about 90 acres in size. The scheme would be worth more than £25m alone.
“It will be right up there with the biggest solar farms in the country,” said Mr Dampney, speaking at a public open day on Saturday.
“The panels will not be visible from public land. Sheep will still be able to graze underneath them.”
He already has planning permission for a £7m biomass plant to burn waste wood like MDF that cannot be recycled. At present it is shipped to Sweden and burned there. The new plant would produce 23,600 megawatts of electricity per year and is expected to open in mid-2014, thanks to funding from a venture capitalist.
Trelawney said: “There will not be any smoke at all. The most you will see is a little steam.”
The excess waste from the burner would also be used to warm up enclosed tanks of waste food in a proposed £14m anaerobic digester facility.
The food is broken down naturally into gas and Eco estimates it will generate enough methane to supply 3,000 homes a year.
Mr Dampney said there would be no smell from the enclosed tanks.
The company is now seeking planning permission for the solar farm and the anaerobic digester.
Mr Dampney said: “We are moving into energy regeneration but we will carry on doing all the good recycling work that we do. Recycling is still the best way of dealing with waste.”
Comments(11)
Palantir
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7:23pm Thu 20 Sep 12
nobull
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9:19pm Thu 20 Sep 12
P Barker
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9:44pm Thu 20 Sep 12
Palantir
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10:46pm Thu 20 Sep 12
P Barker wrote:We need to start investing in clean and renewable alternatives, and seeing as we can't have wind turbines because they might upset someone's view, we might as well have the next best thing in the form of solar power - it's a start and hopefully a pilot to something bigger in the country!
I believe this was planned a while back, and the council said no !. Strange because its affecting no one. The NIMBY cant moan about wind turbines, noise, vehicles etc. A large cost outlay, but "free" energy from the sun.Good luck to him.
jeebuscripes
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8:15am Fri 21 Sep 12
If only the traditional coal, oil and gas companise were forced to help subsidise initiatives of this nature.
a.g.o.g.
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9:29am Fri 21 Sep 12
elite50
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11:45am Fri 21 Sep 12
We just had a summer with virtually no sun!
BarrHumbug
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12:48pm Fri 21 Sep 12
You don't need a business degree to know that buying units of energy at 46p (commercial ventures get less) and then selling them at 17p isn't a very good idea?
Surely this is the nail in the coffin for solar energy or the government, which ever falls first? As more and more people sign up to solar panels and more and more farmers lease off their land to solar farms there will be a point at which the subsidies run out and they will all be left as rusting memento's of a flawed venture?
a.g.o.g.
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2:32pm Fri 21 Sep 12
BarrHumbug wrote:I think the deal is that you get 46p/kwh for the electricity you produce and actually use yourself but only 4p for that which you feed into The Grid (domestic tariffs). If so Buying-in at 4 and selling at 12 thereabouts ain`t bad biz. But only if you have got sufficient demand when the juice is pouring in around mid-day on a fine day.
Good luck to the guy but the only thing I would say is without subsidies would he be venturing into this at all? You don't need a business degree to know that buying units of energy at 46p (commercial ventures get less) and then selling them at 17p isn't a very good idea? Surely this is the nail in the coffin for solar energy or the government, which ever falls first? As more and more people sign up to solar panels and more and more farmers lease off their land to solar farms there will be a point at which the subsidies run out and they will all be left as rusting memento's of a flawed venture?
Thus my comments above.
Wrong time of day for topping up the electric car batteries as well.....
a.g.o.g.
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2:51pm Fri 21 Sep 12
a.g.o.g. wrote:No. Wrong Tariffs! Just checked. Domestic you get 16p/kwh for all you produce plus 4.5p for that part of it you may export to the grid whilst commercial set-ups like this one get a flat 7.1p/kwhr it supplies to the grid.
BarrHumbug wrote: Good luck to the guy but the only thing I would say is without subsidies would he be venturing into this at all? You don't need a business degree to know that buying units of energy at 46p (commercial ventures get less) and then selling them at 17p isn't a very good idea? Surely this is the nail in the coffin for solar energy or the government, which ever falls first? As more and more people sign up to solar panels and more and more farmers lease off their land to solar farms there will be a point at which the subsidies run out and they will all be left as rusting memento's of a flawed venture?I think the deal is that you get 46p/kwh for the electricity you produce and actually use yourself but only 4p for that which you feed into The Grid (domestic tariffs). If so Buying-in at 4 and selling at 12 thereabouts ain`t bad biz. But only if you have got sufficient demand when the juice is pouring in around mid-day on a fine day. Thus my comments above. Wrong time of day for topping up the electric car batteries as well.....
Roll-on those sunny days might he say.
EGHH says...
6:36pm Thu 20 Sep 12