It’s a simple question, but one that’s becoming increasingly important. We hear the words ‘huge’, ‘massive’, ‘giant’, ‘mega’ and ‘colossal’ whenever a new solar farm is proposed.But what counted as a very large solar farm just a few years ago is very different from the scale of some projects being proposed today.
For many local people, a large solar farm might be something like Wilbraham Solar Farm. At 156 acres, it was one of the largest developments in the area when approved. Recently, a proposed 171-acre solar farm in North Staffordshire was described as ‘giant’. It may be huge for that area, but this highlights the challenge: the word ‘huge’ is now being used to describe projects of very different scales. So where does Kingsway fit? Is it simply another large solar farm, or is it something altogether different?
A different scale altogether
Over the last few years, a new generation of solar developments has emerged. These are no longer ‘smaller’ 30, 40 or 50 megawatt (MW) schemes. Many are now 400–600 MW and cover thousands of acres of countryside.
Because of their size and national importance, these larger projects are classed as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). This means they are not decided by local planning authorities in the usual way; the final decision is made by the Secretary of State following an examination by the Planning Inspectorate.
Take Kingsway Solar Farm. Together with battery energy storage, substations and other infrastructure, it would occupy an area around 20 times larger than Wilbraham Solar Farm.
This is not just a bigger solar farm. It is a completely different scale of development.
Visualising something this large
Most of us don’t picture megawatts—we picture places. A typical Cambridgeshire arable field is around five hectares. Using that as a guide, Wilbraham Solar Farm covers the equivalent of around 13 fields. Kingsway would cover around 250.
Suddenly, the word huge means something very different.
Calling both Wilbraham and Kingsway ‘solar farms’ can hide just how different they are in scale and impact. It is a little like using the same term for a village lane and the M11. Both are roads, but few people would confuse the experience of using them.
So what would Kingsway actually look like?
A scale we are not used to
Perhaps the most surprising fact is that very few solar developments of this size have actually been built.
Only one solar farm of anything approaching this scale has been completed in England. Cleve Hill Solar Park in Kent, the UK’s largest operational solar farm, covers around 900 acres (360 hectares), has over 550,000 solar panels, and generates 373 MW. Even Cleve Hill is significantly smaller than the proposed Kingsway Solar Farm.
Several more projects have now received planning consent, and Mallard Pass Solar Farm in Lincolnshire has recently begun construction. Yet even Mallard Pass, covering around 2,000 acres of farmland, would still be considerably smaller than Kingsway.
In reality, very few communities have experienced what living alongside one of these new NSIP solar developments actually looks and feels like.
What are people saying yes to?
Government surveys such as the Public Attitudes Tracker consistently show strong public support for solar energy, and that’s encouraging. Renewable energy has an important role to play in the UK’s future.
But those surveys ask broad questions, such as whether people support solar power or would be happy living near a solar farm.
They don’t ask whether people are imagining:
- a small community solar scheme
- a 49 MW development like Wilbraham
- or a 500 MW NSIP like Kingsway
They’re all called solar farms, yet they are very different in scale.
Public attitude surveys rarely distinguish between a local solar farm and a NSIP solar farm covering thousands of acres. Whether people’s opinion would change if that distinction were made is an important question.
Understanding the scale before deciding
Projects like Kingsway represent a new generation of solar development. They are no longer simply large solar farms; they are major pieces of national infrastructure that can reshape landscapes and change the places where people live, work and farm.
Before decisions are made, it is essential to understand the true scale of developments like Kingsway — because scale influences everything, from the amount of land required to the number of communities affected. A 500 MW NSIP project is very different from the solar farms many people may be familiar with.
Only by understanding the scale, the land involved and the potential impacts on communities, nature and landscapes can we have a meaningful debate about where developments of this size belong.
This is a sobering article raising a crucial point about the unprecedented size of the next generation corporate owned and built solar ‘farms’. Really they are sprawling solar industrial facilities with footprints the size of large towns. No one knows what it’s like to live next to an energy industrial complex like Kingsway because none have ever been built in the UK. These are private investment assets that will likely be sold to large overseas fund holders and it is a crime to see the irreparable damage they will do to beautiful countryside and farmland.