Benefits

Project Benefits

There are many benefits to the type of project that we are proposing and where possible, co-locating Battery Energy Storage Systems with solar farms makes our projects even more efficient, provides additional flexibility for the wider electricity system, and enables our sites to continue providing clean renewable energy to the network even after the sun has set.

Alongside the inherent renewable energy benefits that this project would deliver, it will also provide:

Community Benefit Fund

Grupotec is committed to building long-term partnerships with neighbouring communities and to providing a Community Benefit Fund during the planned 40-year life of the project, to be spent by local people on local projects and initiatives. We will set up the Fund in consultation with local bodies, such as the community council, to understand how it could be managed with important funding allocation decisions taken by members of the community in which our projects operate. Our community funds are very flexible and designed to support what is most important to local people.

Typically, funds can be used for conservation projects, upgrading community facilities such as playgrounds, air source heat pumps and solar panels for community buildings and support for staff working with community groups etcetera.

Local Economy

The project will contribute to the local economy, directly through the creation of construction-related jobs and indirectly in the supply chain. Whilst the construction period is limited, this will be an important stimulus to the local economy and have knock on impacts in terms of trickle-down spend. There will also be creation of further jobs directly through operation and maintenance as well as by the project’s wider economic stimulus.

The project will also make an ongoing contribution to the local and wider economy through business rates payable by the project owners.

Increased Biodiversity

Solar farms are also a fully reversible form of development allowing the restoration of land to its former use at the end of a project’s operational lifetime. Protected species have been found to be more abundant inside solar farms, compared to land primarily used for agriculture. Increased biodiversity to enhance local wildlife will be included within the proposals and additional hedgerow planting alongside existing vegetation by the road frontage will be delivered as part of the project as well as proposals to increase biodiversity more generally across the site.