Renewable energy project proposed in North Wales
Plans from Island Green Power UK are in motion for a solar power and batter energy storage system on land near Bodelwyddan and Abergele.
Stantec, advisor on the project, has lodged an environmental impact assessment scoping report with Denbighshire County Council and Conwy County Council, for a project co-located across the county boundaries.
The planning consultancy is working for Bodelwyddan Solar & Energy Storage, a special purpose vehicle owned by Island Green Power.
As set out in the documentation, a full planning application will follow for the construction, operation and maintenance of a proposed solar photovoltaic electricity generating system and battery energy storage system, along with associated solar arrays, inverters, transformers, cabling, substations, access tracks, landscaping, ecological enhancement areas and associated ancillary development.
The proposed development will comprise 110MW solar and 110MW BESS. The site is made up of two parcels of land to the north-west of Bodelwyddan, along with the underground cable route to connect to the Bodelwyydan National Grid substation. In all, it takes up slightly less than 400 acres, although Stantec stressed that the developable area will come to substantially less.
Of this, the BESS takes up around 16 acres, to the south of St Asaph Business Park and west of the substation.
A precedent has been set for solar development in the area, with a previously consented project being part built-out close to, but outside the boundaries of the proposed site.
As the project is deemed as being of national significance, the Welsh Government’s planning and environment decisions department will ultimately rule on the project. It has asked the local authorities concerned to respond to the scoping report by the end of this month.
Documents related to the project can be found on Denbighshire CC’s planning portal with the reference 40/2024/1575/EIA-SCO.
Why not put solar panels on all new builds instead of farmland, which in effect then becomes developed land and subsequently easier to get permission for houses in the future? Hmm.
By PLF_Cloud_Cuckoo_Land
There’s a lot of blank roofs on industrial sheds. How about using these for solar panels? A more clever use of land.
By Rye
Here we go, using the “national significance” argument and overriding normal and decades of planning decisions being determined on Planning reasons, not as commercial and industrial imperatives. The energy companies are loving the open door that’s coming, and precedent should not matter where local Planning considerations outweigh the visual and other environmental factors. No other commercial use. Another multinational asset management company and let’s have no illusion this is a UK company, you’re just a customer.
By Dave
Here we are again fertile land being taken meaning less food produced increasing the amount of food imported which is already at 40%. Do these people have any idea what they are doing, a tick box system with clever people with absolutely no commonsense.
By Anonymous