Farming Talk: Revenue opportunities in adopting solar in Shropshire
Farmers looking to decarbonise their operations, create additional revenue or protect themselves from rising energy costs could help themselves by considering solar panels.
Government figures show that farming and other businesses paid 98% more for gas in the second quarter of 2022 than in the same period last year, and 45% more for electricity.
With gas prices set to remain high for at least two years, some are even predicting that above average prices could be seen until 2030.
At present, just 22% of farmers in England have solar according to research from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). This leaves many at risk to power price volatility.
If the 78% of farmers without solar were to adopt it, over the next two years their energy savings and the potential revenue they could generate from the installation could be substantial and would almost offset increased fertiliser costs.
Further research by Savills Energy has shown that by first understanding the demand profile of the operation over various timeframes (monthly, weekly, daily, hourly), renewable energy solutions can be tailored to fit that demand profile, reducing the need to source energy from the grid and therefore minimising the cost of energy.
The higher the solar fraction (the proportion of energy derived from solar PV, whether directly or first stored through batteries and utilised later) the less reliant the farm is on energy supplied by the grid. Worth noting too that the price of energy sold to the grid is much lower than the cost of purchasing energy from the grid, but if there is no on-farm demand for the energy at the time of generation, there is no other option.
Renewables such as solar offer a clear path to help farmers . In many cases, it is even possible to transition glasshouses used for growing fruit and vegetables to heat pumps that use waste heat or renewable electricity.
Rob Paul is a director in the estate management team at Savills Telford
