NextEnergy Solar invests in Northern Ireland – as part of a wider updates on its operations, Next Energy Solar Fund has announced the acquisition of an 8MWp solar farm in Northern Ireland for £8.5m.
Ballygarvey is an 8MWp solar plant located in Northern Ireland, connected to the grid in March 2018. The plant receives subsidies under the Northern Ireland ROCS (“NIROCS”) regulatory framework, and receives 1.4NIROCS per MWh generated. Since early 2018, Ballygarvey has been managed for its previous owner by WiseEnergy, NESF’s operating asset manager, which should make it easier to integrate the plant within the rest of the portfolio. The plant is NESF’s first asset located in Northern Ireland.
Hall Farm connection
Hall Farm II, located in Leicestershire, is an extension to the Company’s 5MWp Hall Farm plant acquired in 2015. Construction of Hall Farm II began in March 2019 and the plant was connected to the grid on 5 August 2019. The plant benefits from the original site’s oversized planning permission and previously-built grid access infrastructure. Hall Farm II will not receive any subsidies but it will not change Hall Farm’s eligibility to receive renewable obligation certificates (“ROCS”). This is NextEnergy’s first subsidy free plant and one of the first in the sector as a whole.
Staughton
NextEnergy is progressing with the construction of Staughton, a new 50MWp project located primarily on a former airfield on the Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire border. The project is split across two sites that are part of and close to Little Staughton Airfield. The airfield was constructed in 1941 and continues to be operational. Both sites will have a direct interconnection and feed into a single substation. NextEnergy expects that Staughton will be connected to the grid by the end of 2019. Again this will be a subsidy free plant.
NESF : NextEnergy Solar invests in Northern Ireland
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