Save the Sitlington Countryside
The impact of solar farms
Solar plants are large, significant industrial developments. In addition to the solar panel arrays, the plant includes transformers, inverters; substations and battery substations.
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They are intensive to build and maintain, bringing increased traffic to the area for the lifespan of the development.
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Shipping containers are placed around the site
housing the inverters. Inverters and transformer
emit constant low frequency noise, this can have an
adverse effect on wildlife, humans and pets using the
area. Solar plants have not existed long enough for
significant studies to document this impact.
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This solar farm is based in Wincombe in Wiltshire and we are sharing this example video directly from YouTube.
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The proposed New Hall Farm development would see the replacement of open footpaths with corridors of high fencing and the installation of
2.8 metre high panels in large arrays across the countryside.
Planning ‘creep’ in solar developments is common. This can see developers requesting to extend the size of the development.
Under the guise of ‘protecting their assets, further measures such as CCTV spanning the local countryside and more intrusive fencing are requested, increasing the negative impact of the development on wildlife and local residents.
Grid-scale battery storage systems on solar farms can store huge amounts of energy and therefore if they catch fire, cause significant risk to the local population and our health.
Solar farms are in the hands of private
developers. As such, we have no assurance
that they will be maintained or dismantled
safely, should the company cease to exist.
Our countryside could be littered with
broken solar farms, with no-one willing
to take responsibility for their clean-up.
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Soon to be obsolete? Solar farms are only
the current favoured strategy in renewable
energy. Technology will progress, in a few years solar farms will cease to be built in favour of easier, less intrusive options. But in Sitlington we will be left to suffer the consequences for generations.
