Last week, Richard attended a cross-party meeting in Parliament hosted by SolarQ for Members of Parliament representing constituencies with high levels of planned or existing solar installations.
Richard Fuller MP said:
The meeting was for MPs who represent constituencies which, based on currently operating or proposed solar farms, will have more than 1% of their entire land area covered by glass. Think about that for a moment. In North Bedfordshire, for every one hundred steps you take, one of those will be a step onto glass. If you do your 10,000 recommended steps a day, then – metaphorically - you will crack a glass panel more than 100 times.
What was interesting about the meeting was the positive sense about the role of renewables, but seen through a pragmatic lens of what works and what does not work.
My view is that this rush for solar power contracts by deep pocketed investors is NOT driven by a zeal for environmental renewal but by an opportunity for an attractive financial return based on the idiosyncrasies of how power supply is priced at marginal cost. Maybe that is too harsh, but we should think hard before we give up our farmland for a source of energy that, let’s be honest, is not best attuned to the vagaries of British weather.
