Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to a report of the Director of Environment which sought a decision on the preferred option for delivery of Wrigley Head Solar Farm.

The Solar Farm project was a 891kW ground mounted solar PV array at a Council-owned former industrial landfill site at Wrigley Head in Failsworth. The solar farm would improve the site, including in terms of biodiversity via wildflower planting and other measures, and would generate a significant amount of renewable energy, potentially contributing to the Council’s 2025 carbon neutrality target and / or the borough 2030 target. The project would save an average of 50 tonnes of CO2 per annum over the lifetime of the scheme and cost around £1.1 million to develop. The specification of the project was set in 2019 when the original feasibility work was done it was possible that with improvements in technology, the scheme could achieve 1MW of generating capacity.

In spring 2020, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and national lockdown on the economy meant that the long-term outlook for wholesale electricity prices was revised downwards. The change in this assumption underlying the financial model for the solar farm meant that with the new outlook, the solar farm no longer showed a viable business case.

As a consequence, the project was considered by Cabinet in the summer of 2020 in the context of the Creating A Better Place capital programme review. A decision was taken at that time to stop work on the project.

Before work on the project was paused, a fee was paid to Electricity North West to accept a grid connection offer. A further ‘staged payment’ of around £35K was due in 2020 but was not paid as a consequence of the Cabinet decision to pause work on the project. Electricity North West have confirmed that the grid connection offer was still valid and have provided updated details in terms of grid connection costs and timescales.

The solar farm scheme was dependent upon a cable easement across third party owned land. Two adjoining landowners have indicated a willingness to grant a cable easement across their land, however, no terms have been agreed. It is expected that the third-party landowner would want a payment or the transfer of the council’s adjoining land for nil consideration for the grant of the easement.

In July 2019 at Full Council, a new 2025 carbon neutrality target for the Council was announced - to cover Council buildings and street lighting.

The Oldham Green New Deal Strategy (adopted in March 2020) confirmed the Council carbon neutrality target for 2025 and set an additional carbon neutrality target of 2030 for the borough as a whole.

According to methodology from Salix, it was estimated that Wrigley Head Solar Farm could save around 50 tonnes per annum of CO2. The outline financial model also showed that the project could generate an IRR of between 3.5% and 7% from savings on the Council’s energy bill. The expected lifetime of the solar farm is 30 years.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9