Ham Lane is Low Carbon Gordano’s second community solar project and consists of 3,600 solar panels on four acres of low grade grazing land.
It has a peak power of 915 kW and cost just over £1 million to construct, including the development costs.
Sir Ed Davey, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the previous coalition government, officially opened the Ham Lane solar array on Saturday 16 July 2016.
Commenting on the opening, Sir Ed Davey said, “Working with community energy groups around the country is great, you can see that we are unlocking community entrepreneurialism, talent and opportunities in a way that couldn’t happen without local people coming together.
“The fact that community groups can reinvent some of the relationships we have with the energy system, challenge some of the big corporates and spread wealth, these are just some of the extra benefits apart from the obvious lower energy bills and tackling climate change.
“Solar will be cheaper than coal in the UK within a few years’ time and when you add storage to it, which is the final piece of the jigsaw, then the job will be done.”
Ham Lane Performance
The Ham Lane array has been fully operational since November 2015 and is generating considerably more energy than predicted. Up to the end of October 2020 the array had generated 4,864 MWh of electricity. Overall it has performed around 13% better than expected.
History of the Ham Lane array
Following a successful share offer in May and June 2015, contracts for the construction of the Ham Lane array were placed with Solarsense and work got underway in August of the same year.
As part of the development of the project, Solarsense secured a lease on the land, negotiated a connection agreement with Western Power, and obtained planning consent.
Fine weather allowed the construction phase to progress rapidly and by the end of October the construction phase had been completed and commissioning and testing were underway. The last item to arrive was the inverter station which was installed at the end of October.