New solar park to be built on former landfill site in Peterborough

Peterborough City Council has granted planning permission for a new solar park which will be built on a former landfill site.

The new energy park will consist of over 5,800 solar panels and a battery energy storage system that will connect to the local electricity grid, enabling the council to sell the green electricity back into the market.

It is hoped that the new solar park will have a capacity of 2.93MW, this is enough electricity to provide power to over 700 homes.

The park will be built at the former Stanground waste facility. This site is no longer suitable for waste disposal or development because of the importance of maintaining the cap which protects the environment from the waste buried within the site.

This project will increase the volume of renewable electricity and battery storage available locally, all of which will help Peterborough and Cambridgeshire to achieve their net-zero carbon ambitions.

Extensive consultations, including presentation evenings and webinars, were carried out with the local community before the proposals were submitted, the project team also carried out ecological surveys and incorporated these within the planning application, including landscaping which will block views of the solar park from nearby homes.

Cllr Mark Goldsack, chairman of Cambridgeshire County Council’s Commercial and Investment Committee said: ‘I am delighted this forward-thinking project has been approved.

‘The UK is in the transition to a low carbon future and we must significantly increase electricity generation. Solar panels and battery storage – in the right locations of minimal visual or noise impact – are key to our future electricity system and provide the flexibility and resilience consumers need.’

Cllr Marco Cereste, Peterborough City Council’s Cabinet Member for Waste, Street Scene and the Environment added: ‘I too am very pleased that this initiative was given the go-ahead. We need to do everything we can to support the Climate Change agenda and move towards the delivery of Green Energy as soon as possible.’

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