solar-farm
solar-farm

Carbon savings in West Sussex

Using solar and battery storage to generate energy and save on bills. 

Supporting West Sussex County Council towards an ambitious net zero target

With climate change adding the pressure to reduce carbon emissions as quickly as possible, West Sussex County Council (WSCC) set themselves an ambitious target of achieving net zero by 2030.  

We supported them in developing an innovative solar and battery storage project to generate energy, cut carbon emissions and drive an additional income stream for the council. 

A ground breaking project...

The first publicy owned solar farm

The Westhampnett site hosts 26,0001 publicly owned solar panels generating 12,520 MWh2 of electricity, with no waste as the 2 on-site batteries are able to feed any excess back to the grid. 

ADE Award winning

In June 2021, the project won a special award for contribution to net zero (highly commended) in the Association of Decentralised Energy (ADE) Awards.

Big savings offset energy bills

Through storing the solar generated energy in the batteries at Westhampnett the council earned more than 2.5 million after costs for 2021/22, helping to offset the council's own energy bill.

 

The UK's first subsidy free solar farm

The solar farm, built on a former landfill site at Westhampnett near Chichester is the first local authority run, subsidy free solar farm in the UK. The site has been operational since January 2019 and houses a 7.4MW solar photo-voltaic (PV) array which works alongside a large scale lithium ion battery, that stores the energy generated by the solar panels and ultimately allows the council to sell the energy that is stored.

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A winning optimisation strategy...

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“A report we commissioned from independent consultants Cornwall Insight provided a glowing overview of the optimisation strategy and overall performance against the market. Of particular interest was the conclusion that once the battery was fully up and running in the second half of the year, it secured the second largest weighted average Firm Frequency Response price for that period compared to similar assets in the market.”

Daire Casey, Energy Services Manager at WSCC (at the time of project)
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Powering positive partnerships

We worked with WSCC and a public sector buying group LASER collaborating closely from the beginning to develop a thorough technical and business understanding of the council's challenges and goals for the site.

A PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) was used to sell power and provide embedded benefits. Access to DSR (Demand side Response), including participation in the capacity market, firm frequency response (both static and dynamic), and triad export advantage (until March 2023) targeted activity and price arbitrage in wholesale markets. 

 

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“Through this innovative, flexible approach, we have seen WSCC achieve significant success against its sustainability and financial objectives for the site.”

Dan Jerwood, Demand Side Response Manager at E.ON

Talk to us about solar and battery storage

Solar and battery storage is generating renewable energy and driving revenue for West Sussex County Council. We can help you build your own solar array and battery storage unit, just complete our online form and we'll call you back to talk about how we can help use our solutions to save energy and generate income.

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