FAQs

Anyone who is interested in the Scheme is welcome to take part in the consultation. We welcome all views and will take them into account before our application for development consent is submitted towards the end of this year.

We are holding a series of in-person events at publicly accessible venues. At the events, you will be able to view and discuss our plans for Meridian Solar with members of the project team and provide your feedback. Details of our events can be found on the Consultation page of this website.

You can provide feedback to the consultation by:

• Completing our feedback form online
• Completing a hard copy of the feedback form and returning it at one of the events or to FREEPOST DOWNING MERIDIAN (no stamp required)
• Submitting your comments or completed form by email to enquiries@meridiansolar.co.uk

The government has set ambitious climate change targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions and ensure that the energy supply remains secure, reliable, and affordable. The government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan highlights the importance of achieving 45-47 GW of solar power by 2030 to reduce carbon emissions and the dependence on imported energy.

Meridian Solar has the potential to accelerate the UK’s transition to net zero and make a significant contribution towards achieving the government’s targets, while also increasing national energy security at a time of both rising energy bills and the increasing urgency to tackle the climate emergency.

Decarbonisation is a UK legal requirement and is of global significance. As established in the National Policy Statement for Energy (NPS EN-1), there is an urgent demonstrated need and critical national priority for low carbon and renewable energy infrastructure, which includes solar development at a national scale. The National Policy Statement for Electricity Networks (NPS EN-5) also states it is the government’s position that overhead lines should be the strong starting presumption for electricity networks in general and EN-1 establishes that there is a critical national priority for electricity grid infrastructure, including those associated with the development of a project like Meridian Solar.

Solar developments play a crucial role in the UK's energy landscape, especially in meeting renewable energy targets outlined in key government policies such as the NPSs.

Solar energy schemes can contribute significantly to reducing carbon emissions, increasing energy security, and promoting a greener future for the UK, supporting the decarbonisation of transport and heat sectors, through electrification.

As a Scheme, Meridian Solar is committed to helping to realise the benefits of solar technology. We also understand the local sensitivities and are committed to developing our plans in a considerate and sensitive way.

The most important factor in the site selection process is the capacity of the electricity network to connect new renewable energy generation. National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) identified a point of connection into the planned new Weston Marsh substation, which will have required capacity to connect a new large-scale solar development. We carried out a three stage approach to site selection for the land parcel areas, and further three stage approach to identifying and selecting the preferred connection corridor between the land parcels and the National Grid substation. More information on the stages are detailed within our Consultation Information Booklet, which can be found in the Documents page.

The four principal development areas where solar panels and BESS would be located comprises an area of 1,100 hectares (ha) (2,700 acres) of predominantly agricultural land. Approximately 55% of that is being considered for the solar PV panels and associated infrastructure (600 ha or 1,482 acres).

Our ongoing technical and design work would help determine how much land would be needed to host solar panels and associated infrastructure, and where it would be located within the development areas. You can see the initial design in the interactive map available on the Consultation page.

We are committed to making a positive contribution to South Holland and beyond through opportunities for community benefit.

We believe communities living closest to the Scheme should benefit from it and we’re keen to understand your views on how a community benefit fund could be used. While the final sum for our community benefit fund will rely heavily on the final Scheme design post stage two consultation and what commitments are required through documents such as the ES, it is likely that around £500,000 per year could be available for community benefits for the life time of the Scheme (approximately £20 million in total should the Scheme go ahead).

Early suggestions from the non-statutory consultation included suggestions for funding towards:

• Improvements to existing community facilities, such as village halls
• Sports facilities, such as all-weather 3G pitches
• Subsidised solar PV panels and electric vehicle charging points for community use and lower cost energy
• Traffic calming measures through local villages and road improvements
• Support for community gardens and food growing
• Wider STEM training and education opportunities, such as a nature education fund.

We are currently investigating how a community benefit fund could be managed and delivered independently. There are different ways of doing this, such as appointing a community foundation which would independently manage the fund on Meridian Solar Farm Limited’s behalf, and/or distributing the fund between local parish and town councils.

Funding could also be provided directly for educational purposes, such as to local schools and for courses at higher education. Given the proposed scale of investment from the Scheme, it will likely mean a mix of all types of delivery vehicles will be implemented to ensure as wide a cross section of the community as possible will see direct benefits from the Scheme and experience a positive impact, beyond the national energy generation and transition to net zero.

Whilst the types of community benefit mentioned above would not form part of our application and cannot be taken into account in the determination of the application, this stage two consultation will be important in helping us to understand what local schemes or projects could be supported to benefit the communities located closest to the Scheme.

We’re inviting your continued views on how community benefit could be made available through our Scheme and how it could be administered and managed.

Meridian Solar is subject to being granted development consent form the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero Should it be granted development consent, the construction phase could start in 2027 at the earliest. We anticipate that construction phase is likely to take between 24 to 36 months in duration.

We are anticipating that the Scheme would be fully operational from 2029 at the earliest, and would generate clean energy for 40 years from the date of final commissioning. Decommissioning will commence after the 40 year timeframe has ended.

Feedback received during stage one consultation, along with our ongoing engagement with local authorities, parish councils and other interested parties, including statutory consultees, has helped to shape our more detailed proposals that we are presenting as part of this stage two consultation. In our Consultation Information Booklet, we have detailed the key themes received to the stage one consultation, and our response on how we’re working to address and incorporate feedback in our developing design. This can be found in the Documents page. 

Whilst there is a need for more rooftop generation, ground-mounted solar is also important because it is able to contribute a much larger amount of generation than rooftop. It will be extremely difficult for the government to achieve its goal of 45-47 GW of solar power by 2030 without the use of ground-mounted solar sites. There are technical difficulties with rooftop solar such as the need to be facing the right direction and be unshaded, which rules out a large percentage of building stock.

Absolutely, solar works well everywhere in the UK. It is radiation from the sun, rather than temperature, heat or direct sunlight, that enables solar PV panels to generate electricity. In the middle of a sunny day solar panels can produce over a quarter of the UK’s power, but they do not need direct sunlight to operate and produce power all year round.

Solar panels are used to harvest the sun’s power and convert the solar energy into electricity which is exported to the national grid. For Meridian Solar, the solar farm will connect to the national grid via an approximately 12 to 13 km overhead line connection (due to be located east of Spalding, the exact location to be confirmed by National Grid).

Battery storage, or battery energy storage systems (BESS), enables the solar energy to be stored and released when customers need power most.

Solar farms help provide valuable income for farmers to diversify and improve their agricultural operations. They can still be used for grazing and support UK farmers to continue food production on other parts of their land. Some developers consider growing produce under or alongside solar panels.

Solar farms can provide a consistent, long-term, sustainable revenue to farmers whilst improving the quality of agricultural land through providing the soil with a ‘rest’ period. Currently solar farms occupy less than 0.1% of the UK’s land. ​To meet the government’s net zero targets, solar farms would account for approximately 0.4 - 0.6% of UK land.

Even under 2050 net zero targets, solar farms would occupy approximately 0.5% of the UK’s land which is less than what is currently used by golf courses.