There is now widespread recognition that the UK, and the rest of the world, is in a climate emergency. Renewable energy has a significant part to play in meeting the UK’s targets of eliminating fossil fuels from the UK electricity market by 2035 and achieving net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Reports have shown that in order to achieve net zero by 2050 the UK will need to quadruple its low carbon electricity generation. Solar energy has an important part to play in helping reach these targets, as well as providing a balanced energy mix, and it is estimated that 40GW¹ of solar will be needed by 2030 to stay on track with net zero ambitions, with 63%² (or 25GW) of this coming from large scale ground mounted solar farms.

The UK Government’s Energy Security Plan, published in March 2023, states “Energy security necessarily entails the smooth transition to abundant, low-carbon energy. If we do not decarbonise, we will be less energy secure” Furthermore, it calls for energy to be “cheap, clean and British”. The government has also established a solar government-industry taskforce and have committed to publishing a solar roadmap setting out a clear step by step deployment trajectory to achieve 70GW of solar by 2035. The report recognises that ground-mounted solar is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation and is readily deployable at scale.

Our current power system still relies heavily on fossil fuels, such as gas. The volatile price of these is the reason that bills have increased so rapidly in recent months. The need to rapidly scale up home grown energy has become even more urgent.

Solar is a free and inexhaustible resource which has an important role to play as part of a balanced energy mix. Large scale solar, alongside other renewable technologies, is now the cheapest source of electricity generation³ making solar development not only beneficial for the environment but also for bill payers. If consented, Boxted Solar Farm would be capable of producing clean, green electricity for approximately 8,900⁴ homes every year.

The Boxted Solar Farm proposal has the potential to deliver a biodiversity net gain of 99% in habitat units and 48% in hedgerow units, through the measures proposed in the Ecological Assessment which accompanies the planning application. These measures include new blocks of woodland, extensive planting of native hedgerow trees and flower rich grassland areas.

A Skylark Mitigation Strategy accompanies the planning application and sets out how c. 70 acres of land will provide suitable additional habitat features to support a minimum of nine skylark territories. In addition to the skylark territories, the wildflower rich grassland will offer significantly improved foraging opportunities for skylark nesting adjacent to the solar farm, as the grassland habitats will support a larger biomass of insect prey items than the arable land they will replace.

The solar farm could deliver direct benefit to the area - generating jobs during construction and decommissioning. Inward investment can be significant as a range of services will be required including haulage, on-site welfare facilities, refuse and recycling facilities, transport and local accommodation for construction workers. In addition, the solar farm would deliver business rates annually for the life of the project, helping to fund vital local services for all local residents.

If, having read the above, you would like to support the project, or submit any kind of representation, you can do so by submitting a comment online via the Babergh District Council website. The planning reference is DC/23/05127 and should be included in all correspondence.

^{1 https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CCC-Accelerated-Electrification-Vivid-Economics-Imperial-1.pdf}

^{2 https://solarenergyuk.org/resource/lighting-the-way-making-net-zero-a-reality-with-solar-energy/}

^{3 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6556027d046ed400148b99fe/electricity-generation-costs-2023.pdf}

^{4 The homes figure has been calculated by taking the predicted average annual electricity generation of the site and dividing this by the annual}^{average electricity figures from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) showing that the annual UK average domestic}^{household consumption is 3,509 kWh (Dec 2022).}