Facilitating a 60 hectare solar farm in Yorkshire

Harmony Energy specialises in the development and operation of solar energy developments and utility-scale energy storage projects across the UK.

Having built a long-term partnership with the company advising on many of its energy storage projects, PWA was appointed to help Harmony develop a planning strategy for a large scale solar energy development in East Yorkshire.

The proposed site comprised several fields of low-grade agriculutrual land located near the village of Skerne, south of the town of Driffield.

PWA managed the entire planning application for the development, including pre-application discussions with the local authority. These discussions established the relevant planning policy context, namely the site’s location in open countryside and the authority’s support for the principle of sustainable development and specifically energy development.

The pre-application response identified the various technical and environmental issues which the planning submission would need to address, including design, landscape and visual amenity, residential amenity, nature conservation, heritage, highway safety, minerals safeguarding, the impact on Public Rights of Way and drainage.

PWA’s planning application provided all the relevant supporting information on these technical considerations and responded directly to all the requirements set out by the local planning authority.

The scheme was subsequently approved at planning committee. The proposed development was for almost 100,000 solar panels, arranged in over 5,000 strings of varying lenghts. The development is capable of generating enough energy to power the equivalent of 8,000 homes each year and has a proposed lifespan of 40 years.