There’s a growing agricultural contribution to renewable energy generation, but they need faster, affordable access to rural electricity grid connections.
It was encouraging to hear Chancellor Jeremy Hunt speaking on 22 November about the government’s commitment to removing barriers to investment in critical infrastructure. However, their action on supporting and prioritising low-carbon energy projects while streamlining the electricity grid connection process is focused on large-scale projects. As such it may offer only limited grid modernisation benefits to farm businesses and other small-to-medium sized enterprises.
Many of the NFU’s farmer and grower members enhance their own energy independence and business resilience, while avoiding carbon emissions, through on-site power generation. Farmers own or host about 70% of the UK’s total solar generation capacity, whether on rooftops of agricultural buildings or in solar farms, and the majority of onshore wind power is located on farmland. Solar remains the most popular form of renewable energy generation in British agriculture, with at least 20,000 agricultural rooftop installations and about 1,300 ground-mounted solar farms.
However, the difficulties experienced by farm businesses in securing grid connections and planning permission, whether for small-scale, on-site power generation or larger export-led clean energy projects, means they are often heavily constrained in what they can do.
Agricultural buildings are ideal platforms to host solar photovoltaic modules, since they are mostly owned and operated by the energy user – and roof-mounted power generation blends in with the image of a modern working farm. Using roofs and farm buildings for solar should be further incentivised, as this delivers a sustainable method of energy production while avoiding any possibility of land use conflict – and a small-medium scale wind turbine can complement solar power by generating more during the winter months.
Improved rural electricity grid access, including streamlined and fairer processes to obtain flexible connections from the distribution network operators that make use of the latest export limitation and communications technology, would ensure farm businesses are not held back from generating their own power.
The NFU is aware that many farms are increasing their use of electricity, whether for food production, for on-site processing and packing, or for future needs such as charging electric cars, vans, and agricultural machinery. A package of rooftop solar and a single wind turbine for year-round electricity generation, together with battery storage, would help meet these energy needs while managing input costs and contributing towards our net zero ambition for the agricultural sector.
Our policy work on this topic includes participation in the grid connection subgroup of the government’s Solar Taskforce, which is preparing a roadmap for a 4- to 5-fold increase in solar capacity by 2035 – identifying obsolete processes and regulations that require urgent reform. We also welcome signs that the government recognises the need for parts of the future development of large-scale electricity transmission infrastructure to be strategically planned using undersea cables, avoiding multiple cable connections across farmland for offshore wind power and marine energy projects.
An example of the challenges farmers can face
A farmer in the southwest region contacted the NFU Energy consultancy service, as he had an existing 125-kilowatt solar PV system and wanted to install an additional 150kW on some buildings due to be renovated. Several rapid EV charge points were to be installed at the farm shop, to be powered by the expanded solar PV system. Firstly, he had to explore what was the maximum capacity that the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) would allow, and then to determine the power demand of the charge points and the required scale of solar PV to meet that demand. However, the DNO did not respond to enquiries, and so the entire project has not progressed.
