Ethical Power has been granted planning permission for three solar power plants with combined generation capacity of 63.4MW.
Planning approval has been received for the 49.9MW Burcot Solar Farm, a co-located solar PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) development in South Oxfordshire, the 7.5MW Langer Lane solar PV plant, near Chesterfield, and the 6MW Kirkgate solar site.
As part of the plan for Clean Power 2030 (CP30), the government is targeting 45GW-47GW solar generation capacity, which has seen the “high demand for renewable infrastructure” that Ethical Power’s director of development Steve Cains attributed the planning approvals to.
Notably, the Burcot site will remain in agricultural use with sheep grazing on the land. As well an 86.7% biodiversity net gain, Ethical Power said that once the site is decommissioned, the landscape will be restored to what it was during the pre-war years, based on historic maps and aerial photography.
The 6MW Kirkgate scheme, sited on a former mining area in West Yorkshire will see a net gain of 135% in habitat units.
The vertically integrated infrastructure company, which specialises in utility-scale solar generation and battery storage solutions, put forward the three projects via Hive Ethical Project Developments, a joint venture with Hive Energy. Hive Energy, a renewable energy developer distinct from Centrica’s UK eco-tech offering Hive, acquired a 50% stake in Ethical Power in 2021.
Ethical Power’s development portfolio forms part of its ‘full-wrap’ offering, taking projects through development and construction. The company says it is uniquely positioned with in-house capability across the entire project lifecycle.
Last year, it partnered with Varco Energy to provide Balance of Plant (BoP) services and install equipment for a 47.5MW BESS project in Cornwall. The partnership came shortly after Ethical Power had secured a £7 million debt facility from investment manager Triple Point.
In 2021, Ethical Power established the Lynher Energy investment fund, providing 20% of the funding, with the remaining 80% provided by Napier Park Global. The fund acquired its first solar and BESS projects in 2023 and signed its first corporate power purchase agreement (cPPA) in 2024, covering the 27MW Twitch Hill Solar Park.
Ethical Power was contracted for the site’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC), as well as operations and maintenance (O&M).
