written by Bill Gunyon, independent researcher on renewable energy
Introduction
The core purpose of this annual report is to update and improve data on installations generating electricity in Winchester District. It also considers the local implications of Clean Power 2030, the government’s policy to accelerate decarbonisation of the electricity grid.
My 2024 report focused on shortcomings in the quality of data for local electricity. These reservations remain but are not repeated here in any detail. Due to time lags in provision of data published by the UK government, the most important figures in this report are effective at 31st December 2023. Where more recent data is available, I have presented the picture as at 31st December 2024.
The content assumes a basic understanding of terminology and measures relating to electricity. Comments & corrections are welcome to bill@treadsoftly.net. (a pdf version of this report is available from that address)
Contents
1. Clean Power 2030 and Winchester District
New government plugs into electricity
Generation and consumption of electricity
3. Contribution to energy security
Report Summary
New electricity generation has featured prominently in policy priorities of the UK government elected in July 2024. The momentum now behind Clean Power 2030 is an opportunity for those local authorities, such as Winchester City Council, that have promised to act decisively on climate change.
Although the City Council continues to make bold planning decisions on energy infrastructure, the dominant Lib Dem administration has not redeemed its failure to articulate adequate targets to meet the scale of the challenge. In consequence, the new Local Plan is devoid of the necessary vision.
Nonetheless, even if the timetable for local government reorganisation in Hampshire is fulfilled, there remains sufficient time for the existing City Council to promote and approve developments consistent with a fair local contribution to decarbonisation of the national electricity grid.
The pipeline of solar farms in Winchester District, either awaiting planning permission or construction, now greatly exceeds those in operation, measured by capacity to generate electricity. And home-owners and businesses continue to install rooftop solar at a higher rate than most other local authority areas.
This is encouraging but masks the reality that the District will remain dependent on imported electricity for more than 50% of its consumption, even if 100% of the pipeline comes into operation. Bridging this gap demands a search for suitable locations for a significant number of wind turbines of reasonable size, together with more utility scale solar developments.
To achieve this in a short period of five years calls for the City Council to divert resources to put pressure on SSEN and other international energy businesses to make the necessary large scale investments in our District.
The South Downs National Park Authority should reflect on the extent of this burden on its neighbouring districts, with a view to recalibrating its antipathy to energy projects, even of the most modest scale. Its draft Local Plan is notably deficient in this regard and offers no meaningful gesture in response to Clean Power 2030.
1. Clean Power 2030 and Winchester District
New government plugs into electricity
The last 12 months have delivered a white-knuckle ride of consultations, policies, reorganisations, and reports targeted at the future of the country’s electricity generation. Much of the mayhem was provoked by the change of government in July 2024, leading to publication of its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan in December.
Accelerating the target date for decarbonisation of the electricity grid from 2035 to 2030 has been criticised as over-ambitious but the detail is a little less dramatic than it sounds. For solar capacity, a key issue for Winchester District, the new GB target scenario of 45GW-47GW for 2030 is broadly consistent with a linear progression towards the previous government’s target of 70GW by 2035 (the baseline solar capacity for 2024 is 17GW).
The government’s approach has been to tear up the familiar gloomy prognosis for rapid rollout of new generation projects. Rather than dwell on horror stories about waiting periods for grid connections, it has latched on to the more comforting analysis that the project pipeline for renewables is more than sufficient to deliver a 2030 deadline.
National Grid plans for developing the transmission network now contain a list of projects that have a reasonable prospect of completion in the desired timeline and within its budget. Combined with demand projections and other technical grid considerations, this has enabled the government to map its target solar capacity into 11 separate GB regions. Connections will be prioritised for pipeline projects that are most “ready” and which fit into the map.
The National Energy System Operator (NESO), responsible for implementing the government’s policy, promises a Strategic Spatial Energy Plan in 2026 which will project in more detail the potential locations and quantities of solar and wind generation, storage infrastructure and hydrogen production.
For local authorities these top down approaches and the presumption that pipeline solar projects will receive planning permission may not be entirely welcome, especially for those in regions with higher than average allocations. The proposal by the regulator (Ofgem) for Regional Energy Strategic Plans in England, each governed by a Strategic Board, is further potential disruption of the familiar structure of legitimacy in the local planning process.
Nonetheless, it is fair to say that NESO has injected real momentum into the wide range of technical reforms necessary to deliver the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. And despite five years of detailed climate action planning, local authorities have largely failed to understand the scale of local electricity generation necessary to deliver the net zero agenda. Winchester District’s Carbon Neutrality Action Plan would certainly benefit from a top down reality check against its fumbling approach to energy.
Planning regulations
To deliver immediate backing to Clean Power 2030 the government published amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in December 2024. The key Paragraph 168(a) for renewable energy now stipulates that, in responding to planning applications, local authorities should:
give significant weight to the benefits associated with renewable and low carbon energy generation and the proposal’s contribution to a net zero future.
All recent applications for solar farms and battery energy storage systems in Winchester District have placed the planners in the difficult position of weighing up the benefits of renewable energy against any harm to attributes of the site, such as footpaths and visual amenity. The new NPPF guideline clearly intends to nudge the equation in favour of these developments.
The revised Framework also raises the threshold for local authority powers to determine solar farm applications from 50MW to 100MW. Developers might be wise to resist the temptation of this new scope in our District. We are a little too crowded, too sloping and too close to the National Park. Having said that, recent solar farm applications suggest that the benchmark of two hectares per MW may be out of date, as the technology improves. Some increase in capacity may be neutral in terms of land use.
On its first day in office, the new government made a show of intent by approving three ultra-large solar farms in East Anglia totalling 1.3GW in capacity. The Sunnica Energy Farm, intended to straddle part of the Cambridgeshire and Suffolk border, is more than ten times the size of the largest solar farm in Winchester District. Whilst there are no suitable sites on this scale in our District, these monster developments feed the frenzy of opposition in sections of the media, to the detriment of public attitudes towards conventional ground-based solar. We might make faster progress without them.
Onshore wind
The revised NPPF also removed its notorious footnotes which have effectively banned onshore wind developments in England for the last ten years.
Ten years is a long time in the renewable energy industry and there are few case studies to inform new projects in England. Turbines have increased in capacity to the extent that just two 4MW turbines could generate almost as much electricity as the new 25MW solar farm at Three Maids Hill, near Winchester. Wind projects require at least as much undeveloped land as solar, for similar output, but farming is restricted only in the immediate vicinity of the turbines themselves.
There are suitable sites for wind in Winchester District, notably at Bullington Cross in Sutton Scotney, where a 14-turbine application by EDF Energy was refused in 2014. A concern is the reluctance of manufacturers to produce the smaller size of turbine that might be more suitable for sensitive inland sites or for community schemes. The market is surely now available, if viable financial models can be created.
The government has established an Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce “to drive forward the increases in onshore wind needed to meet 2030 deployment ambitions.” It is due to publish recommendations for policy and planning guidance imminently.
Clean Power 2030 seeks to double GB onshore wind capacity by that date, enabling a more gentle trajectory of solar expansion than would otherwise be the case. This interplay between technologies will be relevant in areas pursuing local targets for clean energy. Rejection of solar farm proposals will expand the need for wind installations and vice versa.
We don’t yet know whether the relaxed planning regulations will revive old applications in Winchester District, or encourage new ones, or both. Certainly, the amendment broadens the scope for every parish community to seek out suitable sites, for both solar and wind.
2. Progress
Domestic solar pv
Near-real-time data for small renewable installations published in the MCS Data Dashboard benefited from its “Phase 2” upgrade in September 2024. Data for battery energy storage is a welcome addition and it is encouraging to learn that the number of registered MCS contractors in our District has increased from 7 to 13. New guidelines for the supplier certification process, focusing more on performance of installations rather than paper credentials, are promised for 2025.
It was disappointing that the upgrade offered no disaggregation of solar data to the scale of postcode or parish, nor any clarity in the distinction between domestic and non-domestic installations.These and other shortcomings in the data were discussed in my 2024 report.
As the MCS database excludes installations larger than 50 kilowatts, its solar data relates almost entirely to rooftop, as opposed to ground-based systems.
Table 1: Small-scale solar pv installed in Winchester District 2020-2024
| New installations | Average cost (£) | Average cost per kilowatt (£) | Average kilowatt capacity | Total new kilowatt capacity | |
| 2020 | 303 | 4,807 | 1,563 | 3.1 | 932 |
| 2021 | 574 | 6,910 | 1,868 | 3.7 | 2,123 |
| 2022 | 779 | 7,421 | 1,741 | 4.3 | 3,320 |
| 2023 | 1,010 | 10,459 | 2,024 | 5.2 | 5,219 |
| 2024 | 871 | 7,979 | 1,597 | 5.0 | 4,352 |
| 5-year totals | 3,537 | 15,946 |
- A 4 kilowatt home system typically requires 10 solar panels, depending on specification.
- The final two columns may not precisely reflect the underlying data because they have been derived from figures in the first three columns, rather than directly from the database.
The impressive year-on-year growth in the number of installations in our District has been broken by a fall of almost 15% in 2024, an unwelcome blip, given the continued pressure on households to reduce electricity costs. It also runs counter to the steep reduction in unit cost of the technology which is now back to its 2020 level.
Solar panels have become very cheap; this is arguably true even for the European alternatives to the dominant Chinese brands. Whilst prices are bound to rise in the current disruptive economic climate, the cost of household solar remains attractive, especially for flat roofs and small ground-based installations, where the need for scaffolding is reduced or eliminated.
Although this drop in local activity in 2024 is larger than the national trend, the percentage of households installing solar in Winchester over the period 2020-2024 remains higher than any local authority in England. Table 2 shows this data in relation to neighbouring districts:
Table 2: Percentage of households installing solar pv
| In last 5 years 2020-2024 | In last 15 years 2010-2024 | ||
| Winchester* | 6.8% | Eastleigh* | 12.9% |
| Eastleigh* | 5.9% | Winchester | 12.7% |
| East Hampshire* | 4.9% | East Hampshire | 12.0% |
| Test Valley | 3.2% | Test Valley | 7.2% |
| Basingstoke & Deane | 2.7% | Basingstoke & Deane | 5.8% |
*in top ten local authorities in England
The government has announced that the Future Homes Standard should mandate solar panels to be installed on most new homes from 2027, to cover an area equivalent to 40% of a building’s footprint. The housebuilding industry is predictably lobbying against the proposal, despite the cost-savings to their customers. Due to the slow construction of housing estates with longstanding planning permission, Winchester District has a large and growing number of new home-owners facing retrofit expense when they can least afford it.
Non-domestic solar pv
My 2024 report explained the near impossibility of presenting District data for non-domestic solar installations and the consequent impediment to monitoring progress and formulating local policy. The data exists in aggregate and is included in relevant figures in other sections of this report. However, the detail remains elusive, partly on account of the corporate tendency to plead for non-disclosure of data on grounds of confidentiality. Such concern seems misplaced for an investment likely to bring both cost benefits and public approval.
This section is therefore limited to an ad hoc register of non-domestic installations (above 50kW), updated by randomly received information and likely to contain inaccuracies and many omissions. However, it is heartening to see the addition of larger scale developments. Whereas in 2024 Sparsholt College headed the table of completed projects, it has been overtaken by no fewer than five recent completions. The same applies to pipeline developments which include potential leaders for next year’s report – Cooper Vision in Concorde Way (900MW) and Sainsbury’s Badger Farm (600MW).
Table 3: Non-domestic solar in Winchester District (above 50kW)
| Location | Capacity (kW) | Notes | |
| Rooftop | Ground-based | ||
| Completed | |||
| Turbomeca UK (Safran Helicopters), Concorde Way, Segensworth | 466 | ||
| Instavolt, Three Maids Hill, Winchester | 350 | ||
| Whiteley Shopping Centre | 340 | ||
| Portsmouth Water, Worlds End Pumping Station, Hambledon | 228 | ||
| Garsons Titchfield (garden centre), Whiteley | 210 | ||
| Sparsholt College | 180 | ||
| Hoare Construction Group, Titchfield Lane, Wickham | 170 | ||
| Vaultex Multi-Storey Car Park, Winchester | 161 | ||
| Bear House, GMK Ltd, Concorde Way | 160 | ||
| Winchester Sport and Leisure Park | 152 | ||
| Corhampton Lane Farm | 143 | ||
| Marwell Zoo | 95 | ||
| St Swithun’s Prep School | 92 | Senior School also plans solar project | |
| Whiteley Cinema | 86 | ||
| Jude’s Ice-cream, Twyford | 75 | ||
| Biffa Waste (Winchester) | 60 | ||
| East Stoke Farm, Wonston | 52 | ||
| Concorde House, J&B Hopkins, Concorde Way | 50 | ||
| Long Barn, Hazeley Road, Morestead | 50 | ||
| Planning permission granted (or notified as not required) | |||
| Sainsburys, Badger Farm, Winchester | 600 | ||
| IBM (Hursley) | 560 | Co-located with 1,500kW battery | |
| Octagon House, TUD Services (UK) Ltd, Concorde Way | 415 | ||
| Fusion 3, Parkway, Whiteley (Praxis Real Estate Management) | 220 | ||
| Fusion 1, Parkway, Whiteley (Praxis Real Estate Management) | 190 | ||
| Whitewool Farm, East Meon | 155 | Includes 30kW existing panels | |
| M3 Moto Service Station, Itchen Valley | 95 | ||
| Unit 1, Trilogy, Concorde Way, Saab Seaeye | 95 | ||
| Unit 3, Trilogy, Saab | 80 | ||
| TUV, Unit 10, Concorde Park, Whiteley | 50 | ||
| Planning permission awaited | |||
| Cooper Vision, Concorde Way | 900 | ||
| Uncertain Status | |||
| Silverlake Garage, Shedfield | |||
| Boomtown | 1.45MW | ||
Sources include: DESNZ Renewable Energy Planning Database: January 2025
Car Park solar
There are no known solar installations greater than 50kW associated with car park canopies in Winchester District, either constructed or in the pipeline (the Vaultex project is more akin to a rooftop installation than a canopy).
Community Energy
There are no known community energy installations of solar pv in Winchester District.
Solar Farms
The new solar farm at Three Maids Hill, near Winchester, has been operational for a full calendar year and appears in Table 4 for the first time.
Table 4: Operational solar farms in Winchester District (end of 2023)
| Address | Parish | Operator | Operational | Capacity (MW) |
| Raglington Farm, Botley Road, | Shedfield | Raglingon Farm Solar, owned by Next Energy Solar Fund | 2013 | 5 |
| Whitehill Lane, Alresford | Bishops Sutton | Malwine Solar SPV 1, owned by Renewable Energy Income Partnership | 2014 | 10 |
| Southwick Estate, Belney Lane | Southwick | Welborne Energy, owned by Bluefield Solar Income Fund | 2015 | 40 |
| Field House Farm, Hursley | Hursley | Field House Solar, owned by Foresight Solar Fund | 2015 | 5 |
| Winchester Road, Bishops Waltham | Bishop’s Waltham | Bishop’s Waltham Renewables Ltd, owned by Solafields | 2017 | 5* |
| Forest Farm, Winchester Road, Waltham Chase | Bishop’s Waltham | Next Energy Solar Fund | 2017 | 3 |
| Three Maids Hill, Winchester | Headbourne Worthy | Three Maids Renewable Energy, owned by Sedgwick Solar 3 | 2023 | 25 |
| Total Megawatts (MW) | 93 | |||
| *Phase 1 only. Approval was granted for 11.4MW | ||||
Source: SSEN Embedded Capacity Register (Maximum Capacity Export – MVA) – April 2025
Since my 2024 report, planning permission has been granted for the 50MW Denmead solar farm. This will become the largest solar farm in Winchester District, assuming that the full capacity is constructed (a small part of the site is located in East Hampshire District).
On procedural grounds, the solar farm application at the South Lynch Estate in Hursley had to be submitted for reapproval. This was also successful during the last year.
Both of these considerations by the City Council’s Planning Committee attracted numerous strong public views both in support and opposition. The Denmead decision carries 19 pages of conditions. The planning department has demonstrated a real grasp of the formidable technicalities that solar farms impose. It is vital that such resources are sustained as the government’s Clean Power 2030 ambition unfolds.
Table 5: Pipeline solar farms in Winchester District
| Address | Parish | Operator | Connection Capacity | Notes |
| Planning permission granted | ||||
| Locks Farm | Bishop’s Waltham | Next Power | 12MW | Permission granted March 2023 – construction not commenced |
| South Lynch Estate | Hursley | Novus Renewable Services | 15MW | Permission (re) granted October 2024 – construction not commenced |
| Moorshill Farm, Fontley Road | Wickham | Jardin Smith International | 3MW | Permission granted 2017 and renewed 2020. Construction incomplete. |
| Denmead Farm | Denmead | Enso | 50MW | Site is shared with East Hampshire District |
| Awaiting planning decision | ||||
| 5 parcels of land off Titchfield Lane. Connection point is at Higglers Farm. | Wickham | Conrad | 50MW | battery storage feature has been withdrawn |
| Funtley Refuse Tip, Titchfield Lane | Wickham | 10MW | Withdrawn Sept 2023 and resubmitted (to Hampshire County Council) Sept 2024 | |
| Home Farm, Hursley | Hursley | Clean Energy Capital | 5MW | Direct wire project for IBM Hursley |
| Planning applications pending | ||||
| Glebe Farm, Waltham Chase | Bishop’s Waltham | Ethical Power | 10MW (includes battery storage) | Screening decision allows application to proceed without a full environmental impact assessment. |
| Total pipeline capacity | 155MW |
Source: DESNZ Renewable Energy Planning Database: February 2025
The application for Home Farm, Hursley, is of particular interest as it will directly supply the needs of the nearby site of IBM UK, described by the company as “a 27,000 square-foot flagship cloud data center.” IBM is setting a good example for other UK data centres in proposing a direct wire solution. This relieves pressure on the grid and eases what might become a disproportionate burden for the local area’s energy security.
However, the planning application reveals that the 5MW solar farm will deliver only about 20% of the consumption of the IBM site. This begs the question of where the other 80% is going to come from and whether demand is going to increase over the next 30-40 years.
IBM has made another progressive move in a decision to re-purpose one of its car parks into ground-based solar (see Table 3) but this will match only another 2% of onsite demand. The Home Farm proposal should be classed as unfinished business from the perspective of local energy security.
It is believed that there are at least three further sites in Winchester District that have secured a grid connection agreement with SSEN, for a capacity consistent with significant solar farm development.
Local Authority land and solar farms
My 2024 report expressed disappointment at the slow and vague outcome of a 2022 consultancy assignment for Buro Happold to develop plans for a “utility scale renewable energy generation scheme.” Nothing of substance has emerged from Winchester City Council through 2024. However, a March 2025 workplan report for a Cabinet meeting promises to “submit pre-planning application” for a large scale renewable energy scheme.
Hampshire County Council has also remained silent on this topic, despite being a major landowner (and greatly in need of revenue).
Other Technologies
Battery Energy Storage
Data for small scale battery energy storage is now available within the MCS Database. It records 179 new installations in Winchester District of less than 50kW capacity for the full year 2024, higher than almost any other local authority area. However, the figure suggests that only about one in five new rooftop solar installations in our District during the year opted to include the storage option, perhaps reflecting the high cost of batteries.
In the business sector, the approval of plans to convert a car park at IBM Hursley into a ground-based solar system included a 1.5MW battery.
During the last year, planning permission was also granted for a 50MW utility scale battery energy storage system at Silkstead Farm in Hursley, despite local opposition.
Table 6: Battery Energy Storage Systems in Winchester District
| Address | Parish/Ward | Operator | Capacity | Notes |
| Operational | ||||
| Land adjoining Harestock Sub-Station | St Barnabas | Winchester Power | 10MW | |
| Down Farm | Hursley | Conrad | 17MW | |
| Planning permission granted | ||||
| Land south of Ash Farm, Titchfield Lane | Wickham | Balanced Grid Works | 64MW | Approval granted in two phases |
| Silkstead Farm | Hursley | Winchester Energy Reserve | 50MW | |
| Awaiting planning decision | ||||
| Land to east of Titchfield Lane | Wickham | Grenergy Renewables UK | 50MW | Screening decision allows application to proceed without a full environmental impact assessment. |
Source: DESNZ Renewable Energy Planning Database: February 2025
It is believed that there are at least three further sites in Winchester District that have secured a grid connection agreement with SSEN for capacity that could lead to a battery energy storage application.
There are two painful realities associated with this technology. First, the current installed battery storage capacity in our District does not even begin to reflect the scenario of a decarbonised electricity grid. Dedicated utility scale battery systems should be dotted around every rural parish and suburban area, including those within the South Downs National Park. Solar farms should always be co-located with battery storage; this is not happening in our local developments.
Second, and by way of explanation of this dysfunction, the battery manufacturers and the developers behind these projects are submitting plans which are not fit for purpose. The technology fulfils an essential role in conjunction with solar and wind resources but the groundwork for its practical operation appears to be incomplete. In consequence, the gatekeepers for planning consideration relating to fire, water, ecology, and others, lack the reassurance of a baseline set of standards on which to superimpose a specific local project. Consultees have become ultra risk averse, imposing amendments to plans, unease amongst local communities and immense complexity for planning officers and committees.
There is no reason why the general public should not be willing to come to terms with a future life surrounded by battery technology, in our homes, vehicles, businesses and integral to the infrastructure of the grid. Fossil fuels carry comparable, if not greater, risks associated with extraction, transport and combustion. The battery industry has some lessons to learn, fast.
The Department for Energy Security & Net Zero has demonstrated awareness of these problems in publishing a good practice guidance document for project developers (April 2024): “Health and safety in grid scale electrical energy storage systems.”
Anaerobic digestion
The new anaerobic digestion project at Three Maids Hill, adjacent to the new solar farm is nearing completion. A recent update from Acorn Bioenergy states: “the site will start producing green biomethane gas in the summer of 2025………The biomethane will be either injected into the national gas network, or used as a renewable fuel for heavy goods vehicles…..(participating) farmers receive a steady income as well as a supply of digestate from the facility; this helps improve soil health and provides a local, organic replacement for imported, carbon-intensive synthetic fertilisers.”
This development will become the first application of this technology at scale in WinchesterDistrict. A much older similar project approved for Ecotricity at Sparsholt College awaits construction.
Solar Thermal
There are 192 installations of solar thermal technology registered for Winchester District in the MCS database, mostly dating from 2011-2016.
Wind, Hydro and Biomass
There are less than ten registered installations for these technologies combined and they are all very small.
Generation and consumption of electricity
Table 7: Generation of electricity from installations in Winchester District
| Total Installed Capacity (MW) | Annual Generation (gigawatt hours GWh) | |
| 2017 | 92.4 | 85.6 |
| 2018 | 93.0 | 92.1 |
| 2019 | 95.3 | 91.7 |
| 2020 | 96.1 | 92.5 |
| 2021 | 97.5 | 87.9 |
| 2022 | 100.3 | 94.4 |
| 2023 | 129.9 | 117.2 |
Source (DESNZ): Regional Renewable Statistics October 2024.
Note 1: a small amount of generation “has been suppressed to prevent the output of individual plants being revealed.”
Note 2: due to timelags in reporting, the Three Maids solar farm is excluded from the DESNZ figure for 2023 and has been added manually in this Table.
These figures are all solar pv. Installations of other technologies are too small to register on this scale. Annual solar generation is determined by the sun’s radiation (insolation) which varies from year to year, occasionally by as much as 10%. This explains the dip in generation in 2021, despite the increased capacity available.
Table 8: Electricity consumption (gigawatt hours per annum)
| Domestic | Non-domestic | Total | |
| 2017 | 228.0 | 369.4 | 597.4 |
| 2018 | 226.5 | 368.4 | 594.8 |
| 2019 | 227.0 | 357.0 | 583.9 |
| 2020 | 244.4 | 311.1 | 555.5 |
| 2021 | 236.2 | 323.3 | 559.5 |
| 2022 | 218.5 | 331.2 | 549.7 |
| 2023 | 223.5 | 332.1 | 555.7 |
There were 56,843 domestic meters and 5,836 non-domestic meters in Winchester District at the end of 2023. Consumption data is compiled from meter readings.
Source (DESNZ): Local Authority Electricity Consumption Statistics (December 2024).
Total consumption is almost exactly as it was in 2020, the most severe year of Covid disruption. The expectation now is for gradual increase in demand, as electrification of heating and transport gains momentum.
3. Contribution to energy security
By 2030
The concept of national energy security in Clean Power 2030 envisages that “clean sources produce at least as much power as Great Britain consumes in total.” A logical basis for assessing local energy security is to monitor the relationship between the final columns of Tables 7 and 8, working towards a goal that local generation should be sufficient to fulfil local demand. The updated position in Winchester District is shown in Table 9.
Table 9: Contribution of local generation to local demand for electricity
2023 has recorded the first increase of any significance across this 7-year period. This reflects the impact of the new solar farm at Three Maids Hill near Winchester, the first local solar farm addition since 2016.
By contrast, six years of rooftop installations (2017-2022) made little difference to this indicator, despite the District’s high relative performance (Table 2). Three Maids Hill, a medium-sized solar farm, contributes almost five times as much capacity as the 1,000 new rooftop installations in the District in 2023.
Another way of illustrating the relative contribution of rooftop and utility scale solar is to look at the breakdown of total installed solar capacity presented in Table 7:
*includes small ground-based installations
The role of Winchester District in Clean Power 2030 is now confronted by the government’s proposals for Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation in England. Local councils in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have been chosen as one of the six pilot areas. Winchester District may be merged into a much larger unitary area, embracing a population of about 500,000. Powers over infrastructure planning, such as renewable energy, may be wielded by a mayor of “Hampshire and Solent”.
Despite this potential upheaval, it remains likely that the contribution to Clean Power 2030 of the area currently known as Winchester District will be largely determined by planning decisions made by the existing City Council. To be generating electricity by 2030, a new utility scale development would normally require planning permission within the next 2-3 years. Similar conclusions about planning powers are being drawn in relation to the timetable for completion of the Central Winchester Regeneration programme.
In projecting the contribution of electricity generated in Winchester District in 2030, it seems reasonable to follow the ambitious tone of the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. Table 11 below therefore adopts assumptions for Winchester District as follows:
- The pipeline of solar farm applications (Table 5) is 100% approved and constructed by 2030
- Rooftop and small ground-based solar capacity doubles its current rate of expansion to add 10MW per annum between 2025 and 2030
- Twenty wind turbines of 1.5MW are installed by 2030
- Local demand for electricity is unchanged between 2023 and 2025 and then increases by 19.4% to 2030 (in line with the 7th Carbon Budget below)
- Future load factors average the 2023 figures for the southeast region ie.10.9% for solar and 27.5% for wind (the “load factor” determines how much power is delivered in relation to the capacity of an installation, for each technology)
The chart shows that the key progress indicator (local contribution as %age of local demand) increases from 21% in 2023 only as far as 59% in 2030, and less than 50% if the contribution of wind is excluded. Dependence on electricity generated outside the District remains substantial.
As in the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan itself, the assumptions made in Table 11 are challenging. The outcome will fall further behind unless local actions over the next five years combine to enable the following:
- Facilitate collaboration between developers, planners, gatekeepers, and local communities to ensure that new solar farm applications are of high quality, optimising the prospect of obtaining planning permission (and priority for grid connections)
- Sustain collaboration to ensure that developers fulfil conditions attached to planning permission in a timely manner, and avoid delays in construction
- Engage with onshore wind and battery storage providers to kickstart these technologies through business models appropriate and acceptable to our District
- Mobilise public pressure on major housing and commercial developments in Winchester District to optimise the potential for onsite electricity generation (mainly rooftop solar), over and above statutory standards, including developments already approved or in the planning pipeline
- Organise peer pressure on businesses, landowners and farmers to take advantage of potential for rooftop and ground-based solar
- Advocate for the South Downs National Park Authority to recalibrate its exceptionally low ambition threshold for electricity generation
The challenge posed by Table 11 is not limited to fulfilling its assumptions. The 2030 column presents a dependence on external generation of electricity as high as 41%. Closing this energy security gap is even more demanding. Actions to pursue might include the following:
- explore the potential of co-locating wind turbines and battery energy storage on every solar farm in the District
- encourage both the City and County Councils to accelerate and expand exploration of the potential for utility scale energy developments on their own land
- exert pressure on SSEN to rectify its poor performance in distribution capacity in our region, allocating sufficient investment to enable additions to the pipeline of utility scale projects
- encourage parish communities to adopt ambitious targets for local electricity generation and to be proactive in the search for suitable sites
This lengthening list of actions requires a transformation of leadership and vision of our local authorities. Local campaign groups should also be much more ambitious in their advocacy. Given the turbulence of social and political attitudes towards climate action, the government’s commitment to rapid grid decarbonisation offers a channel for public engagement to calm our worst fears for the future.
It is therefore disappointing that there remains no meaningful goal for local electricity generation in the City Council’s Carbon Neutrality Action Plan 2023-2030, despite all the recent concerns about energy security and the cost of living. This embarrassment recurs in every progress update reported to Cabinet meetings in which the key indicator adopted for renewable energy is “increase”. This is surely a fait accompli and therefore without value.
Hampshire County Council is also guilty of meaningless phraseology on renewable energy. It’s 2023-2024 Climate Change Annual Progress Report refers to “an increasing transition to renewable energy,” offering no figures.
Each Council has consistently supported rooftop solar and community energy projects, both worthy and popular causes, but they are the soft toys of clean energy politics, almost irrelevant to the bigger picture. Both Councils should instead prioritise staff resources able to build working relationships with the international corporations whose investment will dictate local energy security.
By 2050
Although the area described as Winchester District, and its City Council, may be consigned to history by 2050, some value may be derived in looking beyond the 2030 analysis.
The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan focuses on grid decarbonisation by 2030 and offers no scenarios for the ultimate UK goal of net zero 2050. This a weakness, given the expansion of demand for electricity that is anticipated through the next two decades.
However, there is guidance in the 7th Carbon Budget for the UK, recently published by the Climate Change Committee, independent advisers to the government. The projection for electricity demand in 2050 is 2.5x current levels, an upward revision of the 6th Carbon Budget which estimated that demand would double.
The Carbon Budget’s projections of electricity generation and storage also reinforce the message that grid decarbonisation in the 2030s is just the first phase of a bigger challenge. Solar capacity of 106GW in 2050 is close to 3x the 2030 target and over 5x the current level. For battery storage these ratios are very significantly higher.
Table 12: Projections in the Seventh Carbon Budget
| 2025 | 2030 | 2035 | 2040 | 2050 | |
| Gross annual electricity demand (TWh) | 279 | 333 | 444 | 562 | 692 |
| Offshore wind capacity (GW) | 17 | 47 | 70 | 88 | 125 |
| Onshore wind capacity (GW) | 16 | 26 | 29 | 32 | 37 |
| Solar PV capacity (GW) | 20 | 38 | 70 | 82 | 106 |
| Battery storage capacity (GWh) | 10 | 28 | 54 | 82 | 139 |
Source: extract from Table 7.5.1 in The Seventh Carbon Budget (Climate Change Committee)
The 2050 projections place considerable demands on carbon capture and storage, a technology not yet proven; also on bioenergy from plants which remains a controversial use of land; and on nuclear which carries major uncertainties over cost. Any reversal of ambition for these sources would create further demands on solar and wind. In this context it is reassuring that a study published in June 2024 by the Oxford Smith School found that “Great Britain’s practical wind and solar resources are more than sufficient to economically meet total net domestic energy needs.”
Adopting the 7th Carbon Budget increments for electricity demand, solar and onshore wind, as a reasonable basis for local illustration, Table 13 extends the local picture to 2050.
The key progress indicator edges forward only to 72% in 2050. Although the dependence on surplus electricity generated outside the District falls proportionately in relation to 2023, its quantity is almost unchanged.
The disconcerting implication of Table 13 is the magnitude of rising demand for electricity between 2030 and 2050, as electrification of transport and industry takes hold. Whatever scale of local clean energy is achieved by 2030 will have to be replicated, not just once but much more. The government is right to describe clean power by 2030 as “the backbone of the transition to net zero.” Those who attack the 2030 target as over-ambitious are kicking the can down a road that has a dead end around the first corner.
Table 13 also brings home the message that electricity demand management will be a crucial component of both national and local energy plans.
4. Plans
Local Plans
The continued failure of the City Council to adopt a meaningful target for local electricity generation has inevitably dampened the ambition of the Winchester District Local Plan review, now approaching its final stages.
Prospects for energy infrastructure have been further hindered by the City Council’s decision to accelerate the review timetable, provoked by the government’s imposition of higher allocations for new housing. Unfortunately, the Examiner has ruled that the Local Plan should be based on the National Planning Policy Framework in force at 31st December 2023, predating the concessions for renewable energy mentioned in Section 1. Although these concessions will apply to individual applications, in particular for wind turbines, the formal long term plan for land use and for utility-scale developments does not react to them.
In some respects the policies in the draft Plan relevant to large scale renewables and battery energy storage are more hostile than those in the existing Local Plan. Certainly, the draft does not reflect the urgency of national policy for grid decarbonisation by 2030. A comparable inconsistency with national housing policy would almost certainly incur the displeasure of the Examiner of the draft Local Plan for Winchester District.
The Local Plan review of the South Downs National Park is at an earlier stage but already gives rise to more fundamental concern about renewable energy. The draft for consultation makes no reference to Clean Power 2030. It offers no baseline data relating to the quantity of electricity consumed within the Park boundaries, nor to the contribution of local renewable installations. The Park Authority demonstrates no awareness of the relevance of national energy security to the cost of living and doing business. In consequence of these blind spots, the draft Plan adheres to the status quo that major developments such as solar farms or wind turbines are very unlikely to be welcomed in the National Park.
National Parks in the UK are distinguished from most of the rest of the world in that they exist not just for visitors but also for the communities that have always lived there. The problem for grid decarbonisation is that these communities consume electricity. And the problem for the South Downs National Park is that its population of well over 100,000 people is nearly three times greater than any of the other UK National Parks.
It may be in its own long term interests for the Park Authority to step back and reconsider its energy future. For example, can the goal for the National Park to be net zero in 2040 be credible if it remains almost totally dependent on external sources for clean electricity? And how will it respond to public opinion in districts surrounding the Park that must contemplate hosting solar farms and wind turbines on the significant scale outlined in this report? Sooner or later the differential in land use either side of the Park boundary may be regarded as too high a price to pay for the amenities of the Park.
Local Area Energy Plans
There are positive signs that the City and County Councils are working together on energy planning, taking advantage of support from the government-funded Greater Southeast Net Zero Hub and from the Distribution Network Operator, SSEN. The stated intention of both Councils is to produce a Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP).
The County Council has commissioned research from Southampton University on Hampshire’s potential for renewable energy. Its mapping of land areas suitable for solar and wind should feature prominently in the next generation of Local Plans in Hampshire, as the baseline for quantified ambition consistent with the national interest.
In its Climate Change Annual Progress Report for 2023/24, the County Council is honest about the shortcomings of LAEPs: “There is currently a great deal of uncertainty about crucial components of LAEPs including the role and responsibilities of different organisations resourcing requirements and recommended geographic size.”
In addition to these concerns, neither of these local authorities has fully grasped the first principle that spatial planning requires clear and adequate goals. Without these, planning tends to become bogged down in micro-analysis. Targeting reduction in local emissions will not deliver net zero without parallel targets for electricity generation.
