Landowners take time to assess pros and cons of solar on their land

In his capacity as former Dairy Chairman of the ICMSA, Kilkenny-based dairy farmer Tommy Cooke has insights galore on the sometimes uneasy topic of the use of Irish farmland for solar. Being both friend and mentor to many a landowner contemplating this step, and being an investor in green energy himself, he’s more than au fait with the issues.

“We are seeing in solar development now, what we have seen for many years in the wind energy industry — a popular pushback against these types of developments and a great reluctance to face up to change in society generally.” 

What we are also seeing, according to Cooke, is a community rejection of the planning system as a means of deciding not only where solar and wind farms can be developed, but also houses and extensions.

 “There’s a fundamental distrust of the planning system being fair,” he says “and this is something that many developers would also agree is true. Most cases end up going to An Bord Pleanála. It’s there that decisions are so often made in matters the local authorities will sometimes shy away from.

“Here, it frequently happens that an area is zoned for one type of development, only for that to be followed by a counter-zoning proposal to make it a secondary amenity area. This is the kind of stipulation that makes people question whether planning decisions are being made objectively.” 

 What we have here is essentially an attrition process, he says, one in which developers can expect that if enough planning applications are submitted, the chances of a development approval are increased.

Over the past 10 years, many Irish farmers have spoken with Cooke on the topic of leasing land for solar. Heritage, and a desire to continue growing food on the land, are the main reasons why around half of the farmers who spoke with him said they would refuse requests for land use from solar developers.

Other reasons are of the ominous kind: “Farmers like the idea of money coming in, but sometimes the decisions they make are coloured by anti-solar groups. There can be a fear that if they lease their land to solar companies, they will be victims of an ongoing local campaign against them. They don’t want to be the focus of negative public attention.

“This is happening. Building fear is part of the whole raison d’etre of anti-solar organisations. This is 'the chilling effect' they use to create reluctance amongst landowners to get involved in solar projects.” 

As for community-led initiatives struggling to get off the ground, Cooke says: “Communities are often effectively excluded from developing their own solar projects. Many who have gone down the solar development road in communities have had their fingers badly burnt and, again, this is what happened in the wind industry 20 years ago. 

“Much high risk is put in place in terms of planning, in terms of grid and in terms of market. So much so that no community could sustain that type of high risk environment, for any prolonged period of time. This results in many having to withdraw from projects.” 

Many exploring the solar route encounter powerful committees along the way. While there are numerous government and otherwise led solar initiatives here, they tend to be paired with committees playing crucial roles: Committees of the expert, working, review, local, implementation, and technical and advisory kind.

Cooke says that while there is much said of community ownership, it is the large organisations that tend to make it through the planning system. 

“They might put in six projects and decide that if half of those get through that’s a good result. In contrast, when community projects fail in terms of planning, grid or market, that tends to represent total failure for them.” 

Land use policy is an important topic. But Cooke says this is something that is not well understood by the farming community.

“I think if you were to do a calculation of solar targets, it would approximate to the same amount of land that is under beet,” says Cooke.  "That’s a lot of land to be effectively gone from food production, leaving smaller parcels of land for production. Concentrating agriculture into smaller and smaller plots of land is a consequence of lands being taken out of production when the Department and EU regulations are saying we must extensify rather than intensify agriculture.

 “There are so many reasons why farmers might resist leasing to developers,” he says. “For a solar farm to be viable, it has to be very close to a serious grid. Usually, it is only landowners whose land is within spitting distance of a substation that are approached for solar.” 

 As for the financial offerings paid by solar developers to farmers, Cook says they are “reasonable and that’s before taxation is considered”.

Asked to profile those most likely to lease land for solar, he replies: “Farmers attracted by solar are likely to be past 50 years of age. They may have no children, or children who are not interested in farming. They may not have a retirement plan or a pension and they may be considering how they can secure an income over the next 30 years or more, in times when they may not be able to work the farm.” 

When asked if he believes the requisite amount of land to meet solar targets will be secured within the required timeframe, he replies: “I’m not sure. Because what happens is that all the low-hanging fruit is picked first. The easy planning. The farms near the grids. As it goes on, it will get incrementally difficult. That’s a sure thing. So I think they are going to struggle to meet their targets for reasons other than just planning, such as grid connection, price in the market and more.”

What’s his view on the 60% TAMS grant? 

“It is enough for now. It will be when that’s not enough to get the repayment model down to repayment within five years, then an increase will be needed and not before, as the government cannot spend money where it is not needed.” 

We don’t talk about bike sheds here. Instead, Cooke delivers what he describes as “a word of caution”: “If you look at countries that have over-developed solar — and that has happened in parts of Australia —  where there is so much solar on the system that the market place basically collapses and goes into negative prices.

“There is a sweet point at which the solar price will never be negative. But if there are not enough energy storage systems in place, then it could easily be over installed —  because solar is a very peaky thing and the peak is always daytime.” 

Our chat then returns to the challenge of increasing solar renewable energy here and Cooke tells me of the “great idea” he heard at a wind farm conference. 

“Someone introduced this idea, that there are numerous wind farms around the country in remote areas that have grid connections already, farms that could put in small or medium scale solar arrays in the vicinity of the wind farm, so there’d be solar without requiring a new grid to be built. This would be a very viable thing.” 

A busy man, Cooke was “managing two grandchildren,” immediately before our conversation began, a privilege he returned to when he finished. As he uttered those three words, his deep pride in the pair was apparent. 

It wasn’t until later that it struck me that this mighty but gentle farmer’s minding of his grandchildren, his taking care of them, was at the heart of what this piece is about.