Enviromena has won a contract to repower three major UK solar farms with 20MW combined capacity. Image: Enviromena

Clean energy solutions company Enviromena has won a contract to repower three major UK solar farms to prepare for peak demands during summer.

The farms, which include Halse Solar Farm in Taunton, Horsacott Solar Farm in Barnstaple, and Jordanston Solar Farm in Tenby, have a combined capacity of 20MW and have been generating energy for ten years.

Enviromena’s in-house Design and Optimisation team have already reviewed each of the sites, completing full site surveys to recommend individually specified plans for each facility.

The company aims to recover all three sites to 100% availability by installing uprated inverters where required at each of them, entirely replacing the DC cabling and introducing upgrades to the electrical infrastructure.

The improvements also hope to increase the amount of clean energy being exported back to the grid overall.

Gary Saunders, technical director at Enviromena, said: “Over time, solar projects like these see performance reductions, as much as 25% in some cases, due to failed DC cabling and ducting or older technology inverters becoming obsolete.

“Sites become much more difficult to maintain, so repowering is a cost-effective way of bringing them back to and maintaining their maximum possible performance. It also increases the value of the asset while at the same time increasing its life span.”

Enviromena growing to the brim

Enviromena has made a concerted effort to expand its UK portfolio and has succeeded in several instances. This includes the company’s ability to raise £65 million in equity for a 500MW pipeline of UK renewable projects.

The equity raise was supported by Arjun Infrastructure Partners (AIP) and aims to result in a 500MW solar portfolio based in the UK and fully operational by 2025.

In January 2024, Enviromena continued on its quest by announcing its intention to submit plans for 400MW worth of solar projects over the following six months, joining the pre-existing 110MW projects expected to be out of planning by April 2024.

The April projects are estimated to provide 420GWh whilst also adding to Enviromena’s project pipeline in the UK, which surmounts to 1.5GW according to the company.

A week later, the company submitted plans for a 40MW solar farm to Doncaster City Council named the Marr site. Designed with green aesthetics in mind, the facility is predicted to achieve a 71% biodiversity net gain and a 47% gain in hedgerow units, surpassing the national minimum target of 10%.