Large Solar Farms

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Thank you very much, Sir Charles. It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend from across the House, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith), as a co-sponsor of the debate. I thank him for introducing this important subject so well. Principally, it is about large solar farms here on the British mainland, but we have similar issues challenging us in Northern Ireland. I am all for harvesting our natural resources for energy, but that policy must be consistent with others. We cannot just have carte blanche for one of them.

I will make six points, very briefly. First, solar cannot deliver power output value for land use. Secondly, large-scale solar is useless without battery energy storage plants, which can pose inherent dangers to human health and the environment. Thirdly, large-scale solar developments are a poor use of valuable agricultural land.

Fourthly, there are human rights abuses in the solar supply chain, and the UK taking economic advantage and benefit from those abuses should be called out and challenged. Fifthly, the use of coal-powered electricity in the solar panel supply chain means that we reduce our carbon footprint here at the expense of somewhere else. That is not right. Finally, there is a lack of consideration of end of life recycling of solar panels, or of those subject to being upgraded. That should also be examined.

I will focus on only three of those matters, which you will appreciate, Sir Charles. The first is the value for land use. Take, for example, Sunnica’s proposed solar development in Cambridgeshire. Sunnica claims that it will be a 500 MW solar power station, delivering 23.5 million MWh over 40 years, and it will occupy 11 sq km of valuable arable land. That is impressive. However, when you break down the facts, per year that is 588,000 MWh, which, when divided by 8,760 hours per year, is only 67.2 MW, not 500 MW. That is an important distinction because 67.2 MW is less than one seventh of the rated power of the scheme.

[Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

The Sunnica scheme is largely in my West Suffolk constituency, as well as in east Cambridgeshire; it is across the boundary. The hon. Member is quite right to draw attention to that point, but will he comment on the fact that the biggest generator of energy in the proposed scheme is a battery farm rather than a solar farm? It seems absurd that the two must be lumped together. One might almost argue that Sunnica has put a smaller solar farm on a battery project to try to build a battery farm in the middle of the Suffolk countryside.

[Ian Paisley]

I think that the right hon. Member has just put his finger on a very important point. That was flagged up in some of our constituencies in Northern Ireland, where it is used as cover for other applications and other things.

The Sunnica solar power station that has been applied for will take up 600 times more land to deliver the same average power as the local gas power station, so the land use is not good value for money. Those figures encapsulate just how problematic it is to expect any significant power from large solar farms.

The second issue I want to touch on briefly is that large-scale solar developments are a poor use of valuable land. In Ukraine, vast harvests of grain are gathered each year, but it is very unlikely there will be a planting season this year because of the war, and there will certainly be a very narrow harvest period at the end of this year. We get some of our grain from there; it is a bread basket for part of the world. As our country did in the last great war, we need to start setting aside vast swathes of our arable countryside and insist that we become food secure and grow our own food. I am very proud of Northern Ireland food production. With fewer than 40,000 farmers, we feed more than 10 million people in the UK. We have to multiply, develop and increase that.

It is essential that we address the key issue of allowing developers to get away with putting vast industrial plants on good, grade 1, arable land that we could grow grain on, or have cattle graze on, to develop our food security. For me, that is an essential point. The war that Russia is illegally conducting in Ukraine should be a warning signal to us all. We should get ahead of that now by ensuring we have the land planted for next year’s harvest, which is a very important point.

Finally, I want to make a point about human rights abuses. A 2021 report by the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University, entitled “In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains”, concluded that the solar panel industry in China has high exposure to supply chain compromise by human rights abuses—in other words, child labour and abuse of people working in those plants. We are buying plant equipment to put in this part of the UK, but allowing the abuse of people’s rights in China to do it. We should not allow China, which now dominates the world in these markets, to dominate our valuable production of—

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[Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I stand as an avowedly pro-solar politician. Indeed, I was the Energy Minister. I am very proud that 99% of the solar on the roofs of houses and buildings in this country has been put on those roofs since 2010. I have supported solar scheme after solar scheme in my constituency, including in Wickhambrook—close to my own house—and elsewhere. The case that I will make today is that solar must be in the right place, with the right engagement and the right technology, and the proposal for the largest solar farm in the country, at 2,500 acres, affecting 16 parishes across east Cambridgeshire and West Suffolk, undermines local support.

There has been much discussion of the food security issue, so I will not go into that detail, but I will make three critical points in the time available to me. First, why is there no requirement for an independent, whole-life carbon assessment to be carried out for all developments? The advice that I have received is that the Sunnica proposal will have a net-positive carbon impact over its lifetime, which would make a mockery of the net zero ambitions and the importance of tackling climate change.

The second point is about battery safety. Although the energy farm will cover 2,500 acres, a very significant chunk of the energy—a much bigger chunk than the solar energy generated—will be from a battery farm. We may need battery farms, but they should be in the right place—they should not be in the middle of the countryside. Furthermore, there are significant safety issues. I was sceptical of the arguments about safety issues until I looked into them in detail; there have been 38 fires at battery energy storage systems across the world in the last three years. There was one in Liverpool in September 2020, and the report into that fire still has not been released. There is a suspicion—and I understand and share this suspicion—that it has not been released because it demonstrates that very large battery installations are inherently dangerous. The battery technology means that water cannot be used to put out fires. As the fire authorities say, once one of those fires starts, there is nothing that can be done to stop it except wait and hope that it does not lead to toxic fumes. In areas of my constituency downwind of this proposed development, there are large areas of homes, such as Red Lodge, where this is a very significant problem.

The final point I will make is about process. The developers are being allowed to pick and choose how they get their developments through; there is minimal public engagement. Sunnica has refused to meet me; it has refused to attend any public meetings. It has had next to no engagement. It has not, as far as I know, set foot in the villages and towns affected to answer residents’ questions since July 2019. As a supporter of solar, I find that the proposal, which will affect areas in and close to my constituency, is actively undermining local support for solar energy. It should be stopped and sent straight back to the drawing board, so that we can have a reasonable conversation about where solar will be welcomed locally. We can put the battery technology where it ought to be—in an industrial area—and we can make sure that we bring the community together with us in support of vital renewable technologies, rather than trying to ram projects through against the wishes of local people.

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[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right that we need to test these things and take the environmental benefits as a whole, but these tests have pretty much been carried out, and there is an overwhelming environmental benefit to solar, which is a cheap and reliable power source. By the way, the batteries associated with it that make it more reliable do not need to be sited in the same place as solar farms, so things can be designed in such a way that the environmental disbenefits are not all concentrated in one place.

[Matt Hancock]

In the case of the Sunnica proposal, the battery farm is much bigger than the power that would come from the solar that is part of the same proposal. That being the case, and the argument he is making being important and thoughtful, would the hon. Member not agree that keeping the public onside with the development of solar and its location is an incredibly important part of meeting the very environmental objectives he so cherishes?

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, the right hon. Member is absolutely right. The public should be on board with any development that is going on anywhere concerned with anything. That is a starting point as far as the developments are concerned. It is worth reflecting on the Government’s onshore wind policy. Despite the fact that the public in many areas of England and Wales were in favour of hosting onshore wind, the Government put a moratorium on it. We do not want to go in the other direction as far as public support and renewables are concerned.

I have indulged myself by taking interventions and have gone a little over my time. I hope that Members will understand, however, that my comments are founded on the imperative of solar for the future. Solar needs public support, and a sensible approach must be taken to its deployment if it is to take its desired place in our future renewable firmament.

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[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I have made several interventions. On the point about fire safety, will he take on board, and comment on, the need for transparency about past fires? I should also have mentioned in my speech that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), cannot speak because she is a member of the Government, but she wholeheartedly endorses my views and is a great campaigner for her constituency when it comes to the Sunnica plant—and more broadly.

[George Freeman]

I will happily pick that point up. My right hon. Friend invites me—wisely, perhaps, given the time—to clarify that at the end of this debate, I will raise all the points that have been made today with the relevant Ministers, including, perhaps, the Minister for fire safety. When such a number of colleagues meet in the Chamber, their points deserve to be heard and passed through.

I want to pick up on the planning point. Colleagues will be aware, but those listening may not be, that planning applications for projects below 50 MW are determined by the local planning system. Many hundreds of them around the country have been approved satisfactorily. Projects up to 350 MW in Wales are devolved, with decisions made either by local authorities or the Welsh Government. Planning in Scotland and Northern Ireland is fully devolved. For projects over 50 MW in England and over 350 MW in Wales, planning decisions are made by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.