An abandoned airfield in Scotland is set to become the country’s largest solar farm after Elgin Energy gained consent to go ahead with construction of a 50 MW project.
The renewable energy developer is planning to convert the Milltown airfield in Moray into a solar farm and says that it will start developing the project in the “early 2020s”.
Elgin has been one of the most active developers in Scotland’s ground-mounted solar sector, commissioning a 13 MW solar farm at Errol Estate in Perth. It also has consent for a 10 MW site at Carey, near Abernethy, Perth, and a 20 MW solar farm at Speyslaw, Moray.
Its Milltown proposals include the installation of 200 000 solar panels on 114 hectares of land at the former WW2 airfield, located on the Innes Estate. The project is the first solar farm to be approved by Scotland’s Energy Consents Unit (ECU), which rules on projects of 50 MW or more.
“The ECU, Moray Council and all parties involved in the planning process have been highly engaging and we are delighted with this outcome which is the culmination of almost six years preparatory work,” said Ronan Kilduff, MD of Elgin.
The Milltown airfield was decommissioned in the 1970s and since then has been used for a variety of activities including storage, HGV testing and sheep grazing, Elgin said. The site will continue to be used for sheep grazing once construction of the solar farm is complete.
