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Aura Power is working on a solar farm proposal north of Whimple in East Devon with a capacity of 49.9MW. Horton Solar Farm will be built without subsidy and would generate enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of around 12,000 homes, saving around 11,500 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
East Devon Council has declared a climate emergency with a target to become carbon neutral by 2040. Horton Solar Farm can help in reaching this commendable ambition.
Solar Farms not only increase the supply of clean power but as solar is the lowest cost form of new energy generation it will also help to reduce national power prices.
It offers a number of benefits locally with increased biodiversity proposals and a community benefit fund of £400 per MW per year (index-linked), for the lifetime of the solar farm. This could amount to over £20,000 a year for 40 years or nearly £800,000 in total, used locally for social and environmental projects. We are also offering educational sessions with local schools and site visits to the solar farm.
As a local business, our solar farm will be contributing around £100,000 in business rates to East Devon District Council every year.
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April 2023 - The application is due to be heard at the East Devon Planning Committee meeting on Monday 24th April, following the decision by Councillor's to differ the decision until viewing the site. We have sought to clarify topics raised at the meeting via a Statement which you can view by clicking here.
The full planning application is available to view by clicking here.
Public Consultation. We held two public consultation events, online and in-person, to understand local feedback.
Design Finalised and Planning App Submitted.
Planning Decision is expected. East Devon Council will consider our plans and consult with statutory consultees and local residents.
Construction (If approved). If planning permission is granted we will begin construction no earlier than Spring/Summer 2023.
Estimated figure is calculated using BEIS ‘Sub-national electricity consumption statistics 2019’ (latest publish Dec 2020) which reports an average domestic consumption per East Devon Household of 4089 kwh
Estimated figure calculated using the UK Government Gas Conversion Factor, BEIS, July 2021 of 0.2133 Tonnes Carbon/MWh. NV Calculations based on the PV Syst generation report for the proposed layout
Estimated figure calculated using an average mileage of 9435 miles per year (MOT data from RAC Foundation) and an average power consumption of 2,887 kWh (Electric Vehicle Database 2021)
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Listening to the views of the local community is very important to us and your feedback will help shape our design.
We held an online webinar on the 12th October and an in-person exhibition on the 20th October to present our initial plans and understand feedback from the local community.
The recorded webinar and exhibition boards can be found below.
We have been encouraged by the positive response to the initial feedback received and are looking to include additional tree planting in various parts of the site. If you would like to discuss any elements of our proposal please do get in touch.
This webinar was presented to the local community and interested parties regarding Horton Solar Farm. The presentation was delivered by Aura Power and followed by a Q&A session. Viewers are invited to submit their questions to chloe.hood@aurapower.com
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We have been undertaking several environmental and visual surveys to help inform our design so far. Our proposal offers several ecological and local benefits, along with continued agricultural use, with sheep being able to graze beneath the panels.
Our aim is to design the solar farm appropriately and as sensitively as possible to the surroundings, whilst maximising the generation of clean energy.
Indicative site location shown on the image to the left – click to enlarge.
We are now collating feedback from local residents to further shape our design. Please do complete our feedback form below or get in touch with our team.
This site has been carefully selected due to:
Your feedback is very important to us. Please leave a comment and one of our project team will get back to you as soon as possible.
30 Queen Square
Penthouse Office
Bristol BS1 4ND
+44 (0) 117 214 1982
Designed by The SourdoughPenthouse Office
30 Queen Square
Bristol BS1 4ND
+44 (0) 117 214 1982