Green light for sunlight to boost Highland Council coffers by potential £120m
Councillors have given the go-ahead to develop a business case for ambitious plans for a more than £28 million investment in five solar farms from Caithness to Inverness.
The estimated cost for evaluating the five currently identified sites – Wick, Brora, Tain and two in Inverness – to develop a full business case for investment is up to £250,000.
But that was considered good value when the council could eventually make almost £120 million over the lifetimes of the projects, should they all get the green light, while saving almost 18 million kilograms of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.
Members were told that should the projects be brought to fruition, then the “community benefit” would be “significant and widespread with three clearly identifiable areas”.
The first would be procurement where local supply chains could benefit from the significant investment in both the construction and operational phases. It would make use of land that is not currently productive, making it an asset. Finally, “financial power” commits investment to support actions to reduce carbon emissions.
To start with an initial £25,000 is needed to build a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and appoint the external fund management while dedicated internal project management will liaise with external stakeholders and develop the plans.
The proposals emerged from the council’s redesign board – a body set-up to try and make the local authority more efficient – about a month.
As the council owns a portfolio of commercial properties which are available for rent, there is an opportunity to develop a commercial on-site PPA model across tenanted properties.
By developing a PPA, the council could establish and operate a solar farm on tenanted buildings in return for the agreed purchase of all energy generated.
A spokesman said: “Solar is deployed across the council estate comprising of systems directly connected to properties owned and operated by the council.
“Self-generation sites are best described as energy assets. Operated correctly they can demonstrate significant cost-saving benefits to the council.”
The solar farms
But going beyond solar panels on buildings would be the proposal to establish solar arrays at five sites:
- One in Wick which could also be used for hydrogen. It would need £4.7 million to develop it, would cost another £2 million to operate it but it would deliver income over its lifetime of £19 million while saving CO2 2.6 million kg a year.
- The Brora solar array is smaller with development costs of £1.5 million, operational costs of £9.8 million and a projected lifetime income of £6.2 million equalling an annual return on Investment of 15 per cent CO2 Savings of 882,757 kg a year.
- Tain’s potential for a solar array would see an investment of £6.1 million, £2.1 million in operation costs, projected lifetime income of £25.9 million, and saving CO2 of 3.4 million kg annually.
- Inverness has two potential sites, one at Torvean and the other on the Longman. For Torvean, the development costs are £1.8 million, operational costs of £1 million and a projected lifetime income of £7.3 million and CO2 savings of more than one million kg a year.
- The Longman one would be the largest of them all with investment needed of £14.2 million, operational costs hitting £3.9 million, income of more than £60.7 million, equating to CO2 savings a year in kilograms of more than eight million.
