South Gloucestershire Council has predicted that it will significantly reduce its energy costs following the completion of two ground mounted solar farms on its estate.
The largest of the two developments, a 748kWp installation at Moorend, sits on the site of a former sewage works, while a second project on Badminton road on a former landfill site offers an additional 246kWp of installed capacity.
A spokesperson for the council told Clean Energy News: “Taken together, the solar panels on our estate will generate approximately 950 MWh/year of carbon-free electricity, the same electricity as used by roughly 230 average houses in South Gloucestershire in a year.”
Benu Energy, a renewable energy company, partnered with Ikaros Solar to design and build the two arrays for the council, which owns the installations and benefits from the feed-in tariff.
James Bracegirdle, managing director for Benu Energy, said: “We were absolutely delighted to be selected by South Gloucestershire Council – who ran their tender process through Public Power Solutions – to build their two solar farms.
“The success of the project is a great advert for what can be done on a former landfill and sewage works – turning redundant land into mini generation stations to help reduce carbon emissions and protect the environment for the future”.
