There was a recent freedom of information request asked for the following information:
DESNZ ministers and spokespeople frequently cite that ground mounted solar energy plants will only take up 0.4% of all UK land according to the governments ‘most ambitious scenarios’.
- Please can you provide all sources, calculations and workings that show how the government arrived at this figure?
- Please can you also provide information on how much agricultural land this is equivalent to as a percentage of UK agricultural land, as most ground mounted solar is sited on farm land?
The answer can be found in the solar roadmap found here: Solar Roadmap: annexes
It states that if all new capacity modelled under the current policy scenario (high end) in the ‘Solar roadmap’ (source: ‘Solar roadmap’) were to be ground mount, it would occupy no more than 0.6% of the UK’s utilised agricultural land by 2030.
This estimate is based on the methodology outlined in Annex I of the ‘Solar roadmap’ and the total UK utilised agricultural land area of 16.8 million hectares (source: ‘Agricultural Land Use in United Kingdom at 1 June 2024’), which is 100,800 hectares.