The Eveley solar farm in Hampshire, southern England, has been connected to the grid and is generating electricity, its owners have announced.
Primrose Solar and Padero Solaer (PS Renewables) said that Eveley will "make an important contribution to local and national renewable energy and carbon reduction targets" but was likely to be one of the last utility-scale solar farms to be built in the UK "for some time".
The 49 MW solar farm consists of two sites over three fields measuring approximately 68 hectares with 186 000 solar panels installed. The site was owned, managed and built by PS Renewables as EPC, with Primrose acquiring the full project rights in December last year.
Eveley was granted planning consent in July 2015 and will be accredited under the UK’s Renewables Obligation (RO) subsidy scheme. Construction started in October 2015.
RO support for solar farms over 5 MW in size ended in April 2015, although some projects were allowed to qualify for RO support after this date under ‘grace period’ rules.
