Llanwern solar farm near Newport has the ability to power thousands of homes with clean energy, but Anglian Water has bought the electricity for 20 years(Image: PA)

The huge area of beautiful Welsh countryside covered in solar panels to benefit English firms and customers

31 Oct 2024, 06:48 by Jonathon Hill · Wales Online

A solar farm in Wales has agreed to sell its energy to a water company in England. Llanwern solar farm near Newport has been lauded as an important development for Wales, but the energy it produces won’t benefit locals at all, campaigners claim.

Earlier this month NextEnergy Capital, which is based in London's Mayfair and owns the solar farm, announced the signing of a 20-year corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) which will see the energy sold to Anglian Water Services for the next two decades.

Throughout the planning stages it was boasted how the solar farm, which has 187,500 solar modules each of 400W capacity on the picturesque Gwent Levels near Monmouthshire covering 260 acres of green land, had the potential to feed clean energy to more than 20,000 homes. But critics now argue that no homes will in reality benefit from the site.

Solar farms like the use of land for carbon sink forestry have become controversial as, although they appear to support environmental goals, they support no or little employment, are often owned by firms outside of Wales who take all the profits and take land away from other productive uses that some argue benefit the local economy more. Solar farms are even more controversial as some say the black panels are unsightly, industrial and damage valuable environmental habitats. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues affecting the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here

A spokesperson for Anglian Water said the agreement will support the UK water industry’s goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. They said: “The majority of the energy generated by the array is used in our operations.”

Dr Jonathan Dean of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales told WalesOnline: “This means everything Llanwern solar farm produces essentially gets dumped into the national grid, and Anglian Water has paid to take the same amount of energy out of the grid. Llanwern solar farm is the largest operational solar farm in the UK at 75 MW installed capacity, and it is capable of meeting the annual electricity demands of more than 20,000 homes.

“This all sounds like quite an achievement for the Welsh Government’s renewable energy policies. Except it’s not, because all of the electricity it is going to produce for 20 years has been bought by a company in England.”

The land at Llanwern before the 250,000 solar panels were built

It isn’t the first time locals have been left aggrieved by the news that the solar farm encroaching on their lives won’t directly benefit them. Earlier this month it was also revealed that the Cleve Hill solar farm on the north Kent coast which was also proposed to power 100,000 homes will instead provide electricity to Tesco and Shell.

There is a question over whether a site like Llanwern should contribute to Welsh renewable energy goals. The Welsh Government argues it does. But critics argue this is to misunderstand the economics of the national grid. Customers are told they are buying green energy if the company they buy it from is paying for an equivalent amount of energy produced by a renewable site, no matter where it is.

There are plans for more solar farms in the area with an even larger site in the planning process. The same owner, NextEnergy Capital, wants to build a five-times larger site to power 100,000 homes south of the Llanwern steelworks and near the village of Redwick. The site would cover a large area of the shoreline.

There is also a plan to resurrect a third, previously-rejected plan nearby for 250,000 panels on a 129-hectare site. This so-called Wentlooge Farmers' Solar Scheme between Marshfield and St Brides is also on the Gwent Levels but was rejected in 2001 because the Welsh Government decided it would have had an “unacceptable impact” on a landscape of outstanding historic interest. There is legal action being taken over this as the backers claim the Welsh Government acted illegally.

A fourth but smaller scheme that was also rejected, known as Rush Wall at a site near Redwick, with a capacity of 75MW - enough to power 18,755 homes - was also rejected. That is being developed by a separate firm called BSR Energy.

Magor, moors, marshes, reens, environment, agriculture, Monmouthshire, Wales, England, UK, Gwent Levels, spring, sunrise, countryside, farming, Severn Estuary, River Severn, sea wall

The Gwent Levels are renowned for the environmental value. The flat, low-lying area stretching from the east of Cardiff through Newport and Monmouthshire is made up of fields, drainage ditches known as reens, and saltmarshes. These are full of protected species including otters, grass snakes, bats, water vole and great-crested newts.

The Welsh Government said of the Llanwern solar farm plans: “Welsh energy targets focus on increasing renewable generation in Wales to meet our needs and on increasing the value we retain in Wales from the transition away from fossil fuels. We want Wales to meet the equivalent of 100% of our annual electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2035, and then to continue to keep pace with consumption.

"This will need more renewables of all types. Our latest data shows that in 2022 we supplied the equivalent of approximately 59% of our annual electricity consumption from renewables. The Llanwern solar farm is one of many renewable energy developments of all types of technologies that are contributing to our renewable electricity targets.

“Power purchase agreements are market mechanisms that help to support the building of more renewables at scale by providing long term certainty for developers, producers and users. Welsh Government has no role in these individual agreements. Generally an agreement to buy electricity from a development is not related to where the actual electricity it produces is used, unless they are located together or there is a direct grid connection.

“Locally owned generation provides a strong opportunity to retain economic value, contributing to prosperity and we have a target for at least 1.5 GW of renewable energy capacity to be locally owned by 2035. Welsh Government supports renewable and low carbon energy projects that are developed by wholly Wales based organisations, including community groups, or provide proportionate benefit to the host community or Wales as a whole.

"We have achieved 97% of our previous 1 GW local ownership target by 2030, an increase of 7% compared to 2021 levels. Welsh Government supports the development of locally owned energy through the Welsh Government Energy Service, Ynni Cymru and Community Energy Wales."

Dr Dean said: "When they go through the planning process for these developments they always say it'll generate the equivalent of a certain number of homes. It tends to sound like the people living near to the solar farm will be fed by the solar farm once it is built. Of course, we need lots of renewable energy and this solar farm will create plenty of renewable energy, but I'd imagine the people of Wales might have thought it would benefit them in some way."

A spokesperson for Anglian Water said: "Anglian Water have signed a 20-year agreement with NEC on the largest solar array currently operating, where the majority of the energy generated by the array is used in our operations. This is a really innovative solution as we have a line of sight to the asset, and we’re the first water company to set up a CPPA like this.

"This partnership supports the UK water industry’s goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions and government targets by 2050. By Anglian Water helping the development of sustainable and renewable energy sources, we are aligning with the rest of the water industry's ambitions to reduce emissions." You can get more story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.

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