Lakes and reservoirs will be covered with solar panels under Ed Miliband’s plans to quadruple the use of the technology in Britain. The Telegraph has the story.
Mr Miliband is hoping to make it more difficult for locals to object to bodies of water being covered in the panels and to the erection of telegraph poles in rural areas.
The plans are part of the Government’s new “solar roadmap”, under which an area more than three times the size of Birmingham will be covered in solar panels in the next five years.
Ministers believe the strategy will mean the equivalent of seven million more homes are powered by solar electricity by the end of the decade, and claim it will cut energy bills by £500 a year.
The Conservatives called the plans “mad” and said they were “exactly what we have been warning of all along”.
The plans include new “canopy” solar panels to be built over public car parks, and more farmland to be used for generating electricity.
Renters could also be able to install plug-in panels on balconies or rooftops, allowing them to save money on energy bills for the first time, after Mr Miliband launched a safety review.
Mr Miliband is concerned that the planning process is a “burden” to landowners hoping to cover lakes with solar panels, and is exploring “levers” that would make them harder to oppose.
The Government hopes that by 2030, an estimated 0.4% of the total land area of the UK will be covered in the panels, up from 0.1%.
That would equate to 376 square miles, or more than three times the size of Birmingham. …
The plans are likely to be controversial with countryside campaigners, who have complained that solar panels “dramatically alter” views of rural areas.
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