I read Sir John Hayes’ view on solar farms with some disquiet.
Here’s a bit of context for your readers.
In the UK, 133,000 hectares of land are used to grow crops for “bio fuel” to burn in vehicles.
21,200 hectares are used for solar farms, some of them with sheep grazing underneath.
One acre of solar farm can produce 40 times more energy that one acre of “bio crop.”
In fact, growing crops for fuel uses more energy than the energy produced by the crops themselves.
And, farmers growing such bio crops get government subsidies while solar farms do not.
Not forgetting that golf courses use over 124,000 hectares.
Another bio fuel is the Canadian wood used to burn at Drax power station. Drax gets subsidies of £1.2 million per day.
I came into some money and paid for 4kW of solar panels on our south facing roof.
Due to the old Feed in Tariff (FiT) they paid for themselves in four and a half years. Without the FiT it would have taken eight years.
I also now own a 13.4 kWh battery and a battery electric vehicle.
I buy off-peak electricity at 7p per kWh, use the battery the rest of the day and sell our solar production back to the Grid at 15p per kWh.
This means that our electricity is basically free all year round as we build up savings through the summer and use the money in winter.
Charging the car at 7p per kWh means that it costs me a bit less than 2p per mile in fuel driving around town.
Nigel Wickenden
Spalding
