British Solar Renewables and Santander have entered a joint venture which will invest in the construction of 56.5MW of solar farms across the UK.  

The capacity is spread out over three sites in West Cornwall, East Dorset and North Norfolk. Construction is expected to be completed by March 2014 before the Renewable Obligation is lowered and will be handled by Spanish engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company Isolux Corsan.

Commenting on the deal, Oliver Alexander, executive director at Santander said: “We have been impressed with British Solar Renewables’ integrated platform and their growth aspirations, and we look forward to this being the start of a long-term investment partnership. Working with British Solar Renewables is in line with our strategy of backing best-in-class developers and projects in the UK market”.

All three sites were selected adhering to the Solar Trade Association’s 10 commitments and are sited on poor quality agricultural land. Planning for all of the sites was gained on first application. Modules for the proposed solar farms will be provided by ReneSola with grid connections provided by BSR’s connections unit Renewable Energy Connections.

David Peill, commercial director of BSR, concluded: “By adding these sites to our existing projects currently under construction by our own in-house EPC team, we will be delivering an additional 90MW of solar parks under the 1.6ROC regime. All of the parks have been incubated in-house from site identification through to achieving planning and grid consents.”