Not enough.

Last year we had about 5.2 MWp installed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Kingdom
If they use 250W 1m by 1.6m modules, that will be 33,280 m^2
As they need a bit of a gap between them, let us add an extra 25%.
So 41,600 m^2
There are 10,000 m^2 in a hectare, so 41.6 hectares.


I think, check my sums.

Yes, I have just had a look at the wiki page again and it seems so.

So about 42,000 hectares.

My eyesight is failing, I can't distinguish the difference between a full stop and a comma, you she see my Python code. It never works.

UK land area is 24.361 million hectares
So about 0.17% of our land area.

41,600 m² is 4.16 hectares (not 41.6).

So, with the extra x 1000 it'd be 4,200 hectares.

>>> 5.2e9 / 250 * 1.6 * 1.25 / 10000
4160.0

41.6 km².

That's, of course, for all PV, not just solar farms.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-licensing-statistics-2013

says there were 35 million vehicles licensed for use on the roads in Britain in 2013. If they were all the size of a VW Golf (roughly 4.2 m x 1.7 m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Golf) then they'd have an area of just under 250 km².

>>> 35e6 * 4.2 * 1.7 / 1e6
249.9

Just for context.

James

Generally, PV farms are put on unproductive land. They don't pay as well as crops.
And if you believe the rumours, they are generally put on land that costs money to maintain.
A lot of the south and south west facing land around here, that also slopes in the right direction is very poor (grade 3 and 4).
Guess it gets washed away.

Here are the DECC figures.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/479535/Solar_photovoltaics_deployment_November_2015.xlsx

Posted By: SteamyTeaJames
Generally, PV farms are put on unproductive land. They don't pay as well as crops.
And if you believe the rumours, they are generally put on land that costs money to maintain.

That isn't credible. Round here they've just built a solar farm on some nice flat agricultural land, which is probably grade one. They're not going to do that if it's making them a loss.

A quick bit of googling finds that, in 2009, average farm income was about £220 per hectare for cereals or £300 per hectare for general cropping. Ground rents for solar farms would seem to be £1500-£2500 per hectare. http://www.nfuonline.com/solarpv_nfubriefing4/

Of course, producing crops involves a fair amount of expenditure, so the profit is a lot less than the income. Not much expenditure involved if you lease land for a solar farm.

Combine a solar farm with a nice wood chip / log drying plant to harvest those insane RHI payments and you're laughing all the way to the bank.

In my area there are several new distribution warehouses being built. One or two are huge and are advertised as over a 1 million square feet. Not one has PV on the roof.

Do land maps show the other grades? Where can we find them?