Solar farm approved at Dragon LNG

A solar farm at Dragon LNG will soon provide power to the site following planning permission.

A 14 hectare site on grazing land between the Dragon LNG terminal at Waterston and a strip of grassland next to the Milford Haven waterway will house a solar photovoltaic farm with potential capacity of just under 10MW of electricity for 40 years.

There would be nearly 18,500 solar panels of 540W as well as associated infrastructure and will produce electricity to be exported directly into the Dragon LNG facility, with no connection point to the National Grid included in this application.

Milford Haven Town Council and Llandstadwell Community Council supported the application, a planning report indicates.

Officers found that it was not considered that the solar farm would result in “significant detrimental impact on local amenity in terms of visual impact.”

“The energy sector is clearly a significant contributor to the local economy. It is nevertheless primarily reliant on oil and gas including LNG. There is a need for the energy sector in Pembrokeshire to diversify towards renewable sources of energy not least because of the climate change challenge and the related changes to legislation including renewable energy targets,” a report added.

Members of Pembrokeshire County Council’s planning committee approved the application at a meeting on Wednesday, March 16.