Farmers and landowners in the South West should think about the opportunities being presented with the growth in renewable energies.

Sonya Bedford, Head of Renewable Energy at Stephens Scown, says as fossil fuels become more expensive and renewable energy gets cheaper, people could earn an extra income off their land, “Maximising land use to prepare for a future without oil is a very sensible thing to do, especially when subsidies are looking more and more uncertain with 2012 looming.”

The main forms of renewable energy are wind power, hydropower, solar energy, biomass, biofuel and geothermal energy.

She adds; “Renewable energy is ideally suited to rural areas and if you’re looking to diversify, mitigate climate change and earn an extra income then renewable energy may be the way forward. With the continuing and growing Government support for renewable energy, this is a development area that farmers and landowners can explore very seriously.”

By the end of 2009, worldwide wind farm capacity had increased by nearly a third during the year and wind power supplied over one percent of global electricity consumption.

Once the renewable infrastructure is built on the land in whichever form is most suitable, the fuel is free forever. Unlike carbon-based fuels, the wind and sun and the earth itself provide fuel that is free, in amounts that are effectively limitless.

Sonya says, “A wind turbine is now a much more common sight than it was and the wind power operators are on the look out for more and more land that is suitable. Landowners have an opportunity to earn additional income for each turbine they have on their land. Wind farms provide landowners with a regular income, generally for no additional labour or expense, usually for a period of 25 years.

The arrival of feed-in tariffs means there may now be profit to be made by generating electricity through photo-voltaic (PV) panels on barns/houses or commercial building roofs – the same can be said for the generation of electricity through wind turbines.

She adds, “More farmers and landowners are choosing to install their own apparatus, rather than relying on the companies to approach them for installation. The effects of increased generation of electricity will also mean that more farms and estates will be able to be completely self reliant when it comes to their energy needs.”

Biomass, another form of renewable energy, is being used by farmers both as a cash crop and to power and heat the farm itself. Biomass fuel can also include sewage sludge and animal manure and can be a useful way of using a bi-product which may otherwise be difficult to dispose of with the increasing regulations.

Hydroelectricity is generated by the production of power through use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. Micro-hydro can be cost effective if you have a sufficient flow and head of water on your land.

With the Nitrate Vulnerable Zone designations, the requirement for farms to increase slurry storage capacity over the next few years could mean that farmers look to Anaerobic Digestion (another renewable energy source) as an alternative option for manure management. The gas produced from anaerobic digestion can be used to heat or produce electricity.

Experienced solicitors at Stephens Scown are available to guide and assist you in making optimum use of your land. For more help or advice, contact Sonya Bedford on 01392 210700, email s.bedford@stephens-scown.co.uk or visit www.stephens-scown.co.uk

UK farmers have been able to benefit from feed-in tariffs but as the government plans to review the sum paid for solar energy in 2012, now is the time to invest. The British government introduced feed-in tariffs under the guise of the Clean Energy Cash back scheme back in April and was designed as a way of boosting investment in solar photovoltaic (pv) energy which would help the UK meet climate change targets through the reduction of carbon emissions.

The feed-in tariff works by offering guaranteed, premium rates for units of energy both used and fed back into the grid from small scale solar pv generators. Where they have been implemented elsewhere, they have proved to be very effective mechanisms at incentivising investment in what were once expensive projects. However, government plans to reduce the rate of energy paid to solar pv generators after 2012 means that now is the time for UK farmers to take full advantage of the profits from solar panels.

Many landowners are already taking advantage of the tariff rate which guarantees a rate of 29.3p/kWh for units of energy generated from their solar panels. Certainly, with projects lasting for 25 years, there will be some very healthy profits to be made, something which has not gone unnoticed within the industry. Regen South West are just one example of solar energy specialists involved in rural solar projects. Chief Executive Merlin Hyman has described such projects as an ‘exciting opportunity’ and that they can offer,

“Essentially it is a guaranteed income for 25 years with a better return than if you were to put money in the bank at the moment. But it needs to be in the right place and on the right sites.”

The emphasis of finding the right sites has been echoed throughout the industry. Also, there has been a focus on the need to avoid fly by night installers keen to make a quick Buck and run in the great UK solar Klondike.

This is a view supported by solar pv exponents, Mole Valley Farmers who have their own demonstration solar site set up on their director’s land and are offering open day invites. Business Development Manager at Mole Valley, Andy Taplin has warned that,

“We are aware of lots of businesses popping up and calling themselves solar energy experts, what we’re trying to do is prevent businesses profiteering from our members.

Going on to add, “our main concern is that for these investments to work the solar panels need to last for 25 years to profit from the feed-in tariff — Mole Valley Farmers will be here in 25 years’ time, but I’m not sure some of these solar panel companies will be around once the gold rush is over.”

After a large number of companies developing thin film PV panels got huge amounts of venture capital funding between 2005 and 2008, a handful are now emerging with viable products.

Thin film PV panels are manufactured in a radically different way to traditional crystalline silicon PV panels.  This means they have the potential to be dramatically cheaper than regular panels because the manufacturing process is faster, uses less energy and requires fewer raw materials.  Despite this promise, thin film PV has a number of drawbacks.  The mains ones are efficiency (thin film PV tends to 11% efficient at best compared with 16% for crystalline silicon) and reliability (early thin film panels showed signs of degradation).

Since the thin film companies got their money a few ago, many have fallen by the wayside.  Setting up a thin film solar factory requires huge amounts of capital so a lot of companies just ran out of money and couldn’t convince investors to top them up with cash.  On the other hand, there are a few who managed to actually complete their manufacturing lines and start producing solar panels.  Unfortunately there is still a long way to go before the solar panels can be sold once that stage has been reached however.  In all markets, solar panels are now seen as a long term investment.  This means that investors need to have absolute confidence that the panels will last through their warranty period (usually 20 or 25 years).  Proving reliability is no easy task.  The panels have to go through months of intense testing, and many banks require at least 2 years of real field data before agreeing to lend money to projects involving those panels.  This means there is a long, long wait before these manufacturers can actually sell panels in any large quantities.

Up until recently there were only one, or possibly two, thin film PV companies that had reached that point, the most notable being First Solar who are one of the two largest solar manufacturers of any kind worldwide.  It seems that after all this time there is now a small selection of companies who may be about to join this list.

For me the front runners for this are the Californian company Miasole, the Japanese manufacturer Solar Frontier, and possibly the German company Q Cells with their Q.Smart thin film panels.  Miasole have just announced a large sales contract with the well respected German distributor Phoenix Solar on the back of two years of testing at their Bavarian headquarters.  Solar Frontier have announced a range of lucrative sales contracts around the world which should mean their panels should start to be seen much more widely in the near future.

There is still a long way to go before we know if people will start choosing silicon over thin film panels.  They still have a lower efficiency, which means they have to be sold significantly cheaper than higher efficiency panels, but it could be that the manufacturing costs are so much lower (once they get to large scale production) that the thin film PV companies are still able to make a good profit when selling at much below current prices.  Whether thin film PV enjoys rapid success or not, from now on there will be significantly more thin film PV companies to choose from.

Ofgem’s Sustainable Development Focus has released figures showing that in the first 6 months of feed-in tariffs in the UK, over 11,000 generator have registered for the tariff, marking a considerable surge in solar photovoltaic installations in particular. Indeed, with 11,352 renewable systems installed, it indicates that the scheme has been more successful than predicted, with enough output to power around 35,000 homes.

Feed-in tariffs work by offering fixed, premium rates for both the energy generated from renewable systems (which is then fed-back into the grid), and the energy used. When first introduced by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), it was with the intention of incentivising investment in green energy by off-setting the costs of installing renewable energy systems by creating long term, guaranteed yields from the projects. Emulating schemes applied successfully abroad, it seems that in the first 6 months of operation, the tariffs have certainly been effective as a means of boosting renewable installations across the UK.

In order to get the UK grid network fully up to speed with the complex requirements of a low-carbon economy, the Sustainable Development Focus Report also published its proposals for updating the country’s network. Working on a framework of Revenue= Incentives+ Innovation+ Outputs (RIIO), Ofgem is planning on generating £32 billion of investment much needed to upgrade a UK national grid not yet ready for green energy and the mechanisms set up around it.

Alistair Buchanan of Ofgem wrote in a foreword to the report,

“This is the biggest change to the regulatory framework for 20 years and sets the network companies on a path to playing their full role in the transition to a low-carbon economy while delivering value for money for all consumers.”