The Lightsource solar farm at Lovedean has been installed and is now contributing energy to the grid, just in time to catch the summer sun!
The farm is only visible to most people from one road and currently the site is still a bit of a building site since the plants, hedgerows and grass need to grow back. The Lightsource application included the planting of additional trees and hedgerows around the site. As can be seen from the photo, the solar panels do not appear above the skyline/horizon and there was little reflection whilst I was there.
I couldn't hear any noise from the panels, inverters and transformers whilst visiting the site, just a lot of noisy birds and two workmen chatting, the usual rural sounds.
The scene contrasts greatly with all the misinformed fuss created around the application for a much larger solar farm at Newlands, located between Fareham and Gosport. Ib Vogt withdrew their application for the Newlands farm after Fareham council officers raised two specific issues against the application. It is expected that Ib Vogt will be resubmitting their application in the near future, addressing the officers concerns.
The Lovedean project has a 4.5MW capacity, with an approximate capacity factor of about 10% (my assumption), this produces about 4000 MWh per year on average, which equates to enough to supply 1200 homes (that have gas heating) with electricity. This reduces the need for coal fired power stations and hence reduces CO2 emissions.
3 comments:
Menace my mobile phone signal has been non exsistant since it has been built I can no longer talk on my phone at all in my home or even around my home. Complete waste was this not thought of when the ugly farm was built
The solar farm doesn't produce any signals that would interfere with your mobile phone reception.
The power produced is DC and only gets converted to AC at the invertors. The AC output is 50hz which is incapable of interfering with high frequency phone signals. If 50 hz AC electricity interfered with mobile phones, then we would all have problems 24/7!
If you are claiming the physical presence of the panels is causing a problem (unlikely given the low height), then anything built on the site would have caused you a problem.
So really the solar farm is a red herring with regard to your situation and you would be complaining if homes or something else were built on the site.
I will allow your comment to remain, but I may have to moderate further comments.
Solar farms and mobile phone signals have absolutely nothing to do with each other in terms of electrical or physical interference - or any other factor at all. This comes from someone who developed mobile phone masts for 18 years and solar for 3 years.
Your comments sounds much like many of the complaints we got when I worked for the mobile operators. One chap sued a mobile company as he had a brain tumour which he said was caused by a mobile tower. The tower was one of mine and had been installed for two years prior to the chap's tumour.
However it had never been turned on, as we couldn't get a power supply to it. It was just a load of benign metal.
People put two and two together and claim to get four
Post a Comment