FOTOTHERM

Advisers to the UK’s Swale Borough Council have concluded that no legal grounds exist on challenging the government’s recent approval of the up to 350-MW Cleve Hill subsidy-free solar-plus-storage complex in England. Solar farm. Image by Wirsol (wirsol.com). The council said on Friday that it has obtained legal advice on initiating a potential judicial review process that would seek to overturn the consent issued to Cleve Hill Solar Park Ltd -- a joint venture of Hive Energy and Wirsol Energy Ltd. The Cleve Hill solar and battery complex will see around 800,000 photovoltaic (PV) panels installed near Faversham and Whitstable on the North Kent Coast in South East England. The green light for the development was granted by the UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Alok Sharma at the end of May. The Swale Borough Council was considering a judicial review to protect wildlife habitats. The overall investment in the scheme is estimated at GBP 450 mi...

A bright spot in the coronavirus gloom: Spain, Germany and the U.K. have all broken solar generation records this spring.   Solar power generation records have been set in three of Europe’s largest markets, with cleaner air as a result of the coronavirus pandemic a contributing factor. Reduced air pollution from the lockdown has contributed to new records in Germany and the U.K., while Spain’s bumper year of installations in 2019 is going through its first springtime boost. Records are common at this time of year as panels installed in the previous autumn and winter make their first meaningful contribution to the grid. This time around, however, the effect is more pronounced. With traffic off the roads, planes out the skies and many industries closed, some sources of air pollution have fallen drastically. The British government has detected a 25 percent decline in nitrogen dioxide levels, but the drop is thought to be even more pronounced, up to half, in the m...

Significant decline in air pollution and cool, sunny weather sees UK solar generate all-time high of 9.69GW on Monday Cool, sunny weather and the low air pollution levels caused by the coronavirus lockdown have helped drive a new all-time solar power record in the UK, with solar farms generating a peak of 9.69GW of electricity for the grid on Monday afternoon. The feat was recorded by  the University of Sheffield's live UK solar power generation tracker  at 12.30pm on Monday, surpassing the previous record achieved in May 2019 of 9.55GW. The result is thought to have been in part driven by clearer, less polluted skies. The UK is currently experiencing significantly lower levels of air pollution due to far fewer cars on the roads or polluting industrial activities taking place amid restrictions aimed at curbing spread of Covid-19, which has resulted in clearer weather conditions. Clearer air, combined with relatively cool temperatures and sunny weather, provides optim...