Thank you very much, Sir Charles. It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend from across the House, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith), as a co-sponsor of the debate. I thank him for introducing this important subject so well. Principally, it is about large solar farms here on the British mainland, but we have similar issues challenging us in Northern Ireland. I am all for harvesting our natural resources for energy, but that policy must be consistent with others. We cannot just have carte blanche for one of them.
I will make six points, very briefly. First, solar cannot deliver power output value for land use. Secondly, large-scale solar is useless without battery energy storage plants, which can pose inherent dangers to human health and the environment. Thirdly, large-scale solar developments are a poor use of valuable agricultural land.
Fourthly, there are human rights abuses in the solar supply chain, and the UK taking economic advantage and benefit from those abuses should be called out and challenged. Fifthly, the use of coal-powered electricity in the solar panel supply chain means that we reduce our carbon footprint here at the expense of somewhere else. That is not right. Finally, there is a lack of consideration of end of life recycling of solar panels, or of those subject to being upgraded. That should also be examined.
I will focus on only three of those matters, which you will appreciate, Sir Charles. The first is the value for land use. Take, for example, Sunnica’s proposed solar development in Cambridgeshire. Sunnica claims that it will be a 500 MW solar power station, delivering 23.5 million MWh over 40 years, and it will occupy 11 sq km of valuable arable land. That is impressive. However, when you break down the facts, per year that
is 588,000 MWh, which, when divided by 8,760 hours per year, is only 67.2 MW, not 500 MW. That is an important distinction because 67.2 MW is less than one seventh of the rated power of the scheme.