Solar Energy UK has said the PV industry carries no threat to food security after Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho (pictured) issued a written Ministerial Statement reiterating government policy on the issue.
Chris Hewett, chief executive of Solar Energy UK, said: “Solar farms take up a tiny fraction of the country, which will still be the case in 2035 when the Government expects us to have four times current solar generation capacity.
“They are no threat to food security; they never have been and never will be. In fact, it’s the opposite.
“According to Defra, the main threat to food security is climate change, which is what solar farms are there to fight.
“Furthermore, without solar farms, hundreds of traditional farming businesses would have gone to the wall, unable to produce food without the security of a reliable income.”
He was commenting after Coutinho said in a ministerial statement that documents published in January make clear that “applicants should, where possible, utilise suitable previously developed land, brownfield land, contaminated land and industrial land”.
Her comments came after media reports that ministers are set to crack down on solar projects. However, the REA said it is “unclear” what Coutinho’s comments add to existing policy in the area.
Coutinho said: “Where the proposed use of any agricultural land has been shown to be necessary, poorer quality land should be preferred to higher quality land avoiding the use of ‘Best and Most Versatile’ agricultural land where possible.
“The Government in Powering Up Britain: Energy Security Plan clarified that while ‘solar and farming can be complementary’ developers must also have ‘consideration for ongoing food production’.
The only significant change announced by Claire Coutinho, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, concerned the perceived accuracy of soil quality grading.
The government intends to address this through supporting independent certification of assessments by developers, which should help avoid disputes over which areas are subject to planning guidelines on higher-quality agricultural land.
Dr Nina Skorupska CBE, chief executive of the REA, said: “We need all the tools and technologies available to us to reach Net Zero and we know that solar remains a highly popular technology with the general public.
“While we understand that land use must be planned carefully and do not want to see the loss of productive land, the existing planning guidance already ensures this, by banning solar farms on the best quality farmland and considering ‘cumulative development’ concerns.”
The REA also argued that restricting further solar development would pose a serious threat to the jobs and investment created by the solar industry and the large solar farm sector that is being built now largely without public billpayers’ support.
It would undermine the UK government’s ability to meet a net zero power system by 2035 and keep the country locked in to expensive fossil fuels at a huge cost to households and businesses, it added.
It called on Government to publish their Solar Roadmap following the work of the solar taskforce as soon as possible, to outline how else we can meet their stretching but essential 70GW solar PV deployment target.