Developers of a 350 MW solar and energy storage project in the UK have submitted their development consent application to the government’s planning inspectorate.
Hive Energy and Wirsol are joint venture partners in the Cleve Hill solar park in Kent, southeast England. The project is expected to cost £450 million to develop.
The project has been under a public consultation phase for several months. Wirsol and Hive say that they expect the planning inspectorate to reach a decision in late 2019 or early 2020.
The companies said that the consultations brought some changes to the planned project design, including the removal of around 28 ha of land, reducing the covered area by 45 per cent.
The project will consist of up to one million solar panels in an east-west orientation and will be connected to the transmission grid, rather than the local distribution network. Battery storage will be incorporated in the design to give grid balancing services to the grid.
