Developers are at pains to demonstrate the levels to which a solar power station can be tailored to benefit the community hosting it.
In the latest issue of the PV Tech Power journal (Volume 42, Q2 2025), which is focused on how developers are engaging with the communities hosting solar power plants, Elements Green’s 800MW solar NSIP provides an example of how developers respond to the concerns of local opponents.
A second round of statutory consultation for the Great North Road Solar Park, which will also feature an on-site battery energy storage system (BESS) with an as-yet undisclosed capacity, closed in February 2025.
Explaining the developer’s approach, Marke Noone, Elements Green’s project director for GNR Solar, says: “For every topic that people raised, we didn’t think, ‘How do we respond to this’, we thought, ‘How do we do something about that?’”
Perhaps most emblematic of the developer’s response to local concerns was renaming the development the Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park to reflect an advocacy of ecological principles. Beyond the rebranding, Elements Green forged industry-first partnerships with conservation bodies the RSPB, Sherwood Forest Trust, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and the Trent Rivers Trust to make good on the developer’s environmental commitments.
Renaming the development is one way to communicate to the local community that biodiversity will be central to the solar park; in the first round of consultation, the ecological damage caused by such developments was a common criticism of Elements Green’s plans.
The latest issue of PV Tech Power also explores the effects of a solar power plant on biodiversity.
The full article, which appears in PV Tech Power volume 42, is available with a Premium subscription on PV Tech or Energy-Storage.news, or a Premium-Plus subscription to both paywalled sites.
Mark Noone will speak about engaging communities and securing social license at the UK Solar Summit 2025 hosted in London by our publisher Solar Media in July this year.
