New breakthrough to create community owned solar farm
A new bid is being made to create Arran’s first ever community-owned solar farm.
A site at Glenkiln near Lamlash has already been identified and a £10,000 grant has been secured for the development of the project.
Arran Community Renewables (ACR) was first formed in 2020 and its original solar project, reported by the Banner, was proposed at the Auchrannie but fell through due to insurance issues.
Since then it has been working behind the scenes with many different local businesses and land owners to find a bigger, better project to locate Arran’s first community-owned solar farm.
Finding the right site on the island has been all about understanding how and where it can connect into the local electricity grid as well as having the scale needed to make a project viable. The support so far and enthusiasm from the community has been brilliant.
ACR is a community benefit society supported by, and closely linked to, Arran Eco Savvy.
Past and present trustees are the founding directors and Arran Eco Savvy will play a part in managing any community benefit funds.
Last year, following a feasibility study with Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), the local grid operator, ACR found a suitable site at Glenkiln near Lamlash and has been working with landowner and renewables enthusiast Kenneth Bone to make its case to Local Energy Scotland for the funding of necessary project development work.
Chairman Donald McNicol said: “We are pleased to announce that we have been successful in securing support from the Scottish government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) to
pursue the development of a community solar farm at this site.
“CARES has awarded a grant of £10,000 plus additional technical resource and access to a development loan.
“We can now work to develop a business case and funding model to maximise opportunities for investment from, and benefit to Arran.
“The CARES funding will also allow us to apply for an electricity grid connection and undertake environmental studies to support a future planning application.
“Work on desktop studies will start later this month and we will be bringing our plans to the community as soon as we have professional consultants’ views on the scale and viability of the opportunity.
“All being well we will run a drop-in session in June to explain more about the project and opportunities to get involved.
“If you are interested in becoming a volunteer or hearing more about our upcoming drop-in session, we would love to hear from you. `You can get in touch and find out more at arranrenewables.com”