This blog was written by George Baxter, Vice-chair of Solar Energy Scotland.
Scotland secured an unprecedented proportion of support in the Sixth Allocation Round of Contracts for Difference last week. No less than ten of the 131 auction-winning projects are to be built in Scotland:
The ten projects come to 316 megawatts, or about a tenth of the 3,288MW of won in the auction, which also included wind and tidal power.
Only a single Scottish solar project secured support in last year’s auction, coming to only 49.9MW of 1,927MW. The first such success came in 2022’s fourth allocation round, when only three of the 66 winning solar projects were Scottish.
Solar Energy Scotland’s congratulations go all to all of the winning developers.
The 63MW Benthead project is the largest to have secured planning permission in Scotland so far – and will also be accompanied by a 30MW battery energy storage system. It is just bigger than the 60MW Frodo development near Fraserburgh, the first solar farm to be determined by the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit rather than a local authority.
Two others, both of 60MW, have been under consideration since the spring, while a further two of 75MW were submitted late last year.
But none of these are the largest in the Scottish pipeline. That honour belongs to the second phase of the Tealing Solar Energy Park in Angus, at 110MW.
The CfD system lowers financial risks faced by developers by providing a secure and regular income, thus encouraging investment in cheap renewable energy. It is not a subsidy: when the wholesale cost of electricity is higher than the agreed strike price, as has been the case in recent years, the Exchequer receives the difference between the agreed strike price and the wholesale cost of electricity.
137MW of solar farms in Scotland are thought to be currently operational. A further 1.5GW having obtained planning permission and plenty more in the development pipeline – the future appears bright for solar in Scotland. The industry is confident that it can deliver the 3.5GW proportion of the 6GW deployment ambition shared between the industry and the Scottish Government for 2030. There are challenges ahead, not least for Scottish developments to be able to compete with projects in the south where grid costs are much less, but on these results, the future is looking positive indeed.
The brilliant thing about solar farms is that they almost automatically boost wildlife and biodiversity, and they add a strong foundation for the rural economy and food security through diversification and tackling climate change. Hitting these levels of deployment will result in land take of only 0.05% of Scotland’s land – what is not to like?
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