Southill Solar

Planning rejected. Community united!

As with many community energy projects, securing planning permission was one of the biggest challenges in getting this solar project off the ground. Despite strong community support, it was still a make-or-break moment for whether the project could go ahead.

The first planning proposal was knocked back in 2014, with the solar farm labelled “unsightly, inappropriate development” and its “visual impact outweighing any benefits.” Brutal. It sounded like a straight trip back to the drawing board — but Southill Community Energy had other ideas.

Just four months later, they came back swinging with a stroke of genius. Rather than give up, they got creative and rallied the locals for something brilliantly quirky: Bring Your Brolly Day. ☂️

Supporters (yes, actual coaches full of them!) gathered in the proposed field, umbrellas in hand, standing exactly where the panels would be. Photographers snapped it all from every angle to show, loud and clear, that the panels wouldn’t spoil the view.

And the result? Planning permission was granted on the second try — and the build got underway.Talk about people power!

Powering Homes, Cutting Carbon & Making it Pay

The whole project came in at £4.5 million — and believe it or not, construction wrapped up in just eight weeks. That’s right, just two months to build a solar farm now powering the equivalent of 1,450 homes. To put that into perspective, that can power nearly as many homes as three nearby towns combined.

And the wins don’t stop there. The site offsets around 2,500 tonnes of CO2 every single year and delivers an average return of 5% a year over 25 years. That’s impact on all fronts — social, environmental, and financial. Now that’s what we call a triple win

Our work with Southill Solar

Now that you’ve seen the magic of Southill Solar, it’s easy to see why we’re so proud to support what they do. Our partnership started with a Power Purchase Agreement — buying the clean energy they generate at a fair market price — but their work goes far beyond that… and so does our relationship.

The directors at Southill Solar were delighted to receive the Powering Communities Fund and would like to thank Younity for all their support of community energy groups and initiatives that come from them.

Tim Crisp, Southill Solar Founder

Southill Community Energy are a brilliant example of how to make the most of everything we offer. They’ve been awarded our Powering Communities Fund not once, but twice over the years! In fact, they were among the very first winners back in 2020, using the funding to install fencing around the site so they could introduce cattle to naturally maintain the land and boost biodiversity in the process.

Smart, right? We weren’t joking when we said they know how to make their land work harder. And if that approach sounds familiar, it should — loads of groups around the world are doing this now… but Southill? They were ahead of the curve. First to the party, as always.