The total value of the projects is in excess of 52 million euros, however the company is also about to sign a contract for a 15MW plant near Chichester, West Sussex, worth another 24 million euros.
The 20MW plant in Kent is located at Sycamore Farm near Old Romney and covers 125 acres, making it one of the largest solar parks in the UK. It will generate enough power to meet the needs of over 6,000 homes for 30 years. The 10MW facility on the Isle of Wight is the largest of BNRG’s three projects on the island and is located on a plateau in order to minimize visual impact and maximise the solar resource. It will produce enough power to supply over 3,600 households for the next 30 years.
BNRG funded and executed both projects with construction funding provided by Octopus Investments. The plants were jointly constructed by BNRG and Lightsource Renewable Energy with Spanish company Groupotec acting as lead contractor.
So far BNRG has developed and constructed solar projects throughout Europe with a combined value of over 150 million euros. According to founder and Director David Maguire, BNRG is headquartered in Dublin not just because the founders of the company are themselves Irish but also because there is a pool of development, legal and accounting expertise in the Irish renewable sector on which BNRG can draw.
“Ireland like the UK has huge potential for solar energy, it is unfortunate that we have yet to include solar in renewable energy policy unlike the UK which has seen significant benefit from the roll-out of large scale solar” Mr Maguire added. However, he believes that the recent launch of the Green Paper on Energy Policy in Ireland represents an opportunity to have solar included in policy and to provide a regulatory framework that allows solar to contribute to the energy mix in Ireland.
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