“For the past 15 years, Nick King has enjoyed watching the warm glow of sunset from his cottage window.
The father-of-three and his partner Sue have an uninterrupted view across open countryside towards a copse and a village church.
In summer, hot-air balloons occasionally cross the horizon, to the delight of the couple’s daughter and two sons.
‘We bought this place because the exceptional rural position made it an ideal family home,’ Nick, 53, says.
But now this idyll is threatened. For this spot of countryside has been identified by the Duchess of Cornwall’s son-in-law as the perfect place to put a sprawling solar-power farm on 50 acres of green belt land.
If planning approval is given, Nick’s family’s view will become little more than a towering new hedge — specially planted to conceal endless rows of 8ft-high solar panels mounted on steel posts.
This ‘green power’ project, outside the Hertfordshire village of Knebworth, is one of hundreds that developers are planning across Britain as they try to cash in on lucrative Government subsidies for large renewable energy plants.
Another is Camilla’s son-in-law Harry Lopes, a scion of the super-wealthy Astor family who is married to her daughter, Laura Parker Bowles. The former Calvin Klein underwear model is director of Solstice Renewables, which wants to convert the 50 acres of land behind Nick King’s home, around Datchworth, Woolmer Green and Knebworth, into a solar park.
Fellow villagers who oppose his plans are supported by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which accuses Solstice Renewables of underhand tactics as it tried to get its scheme approved.
Under the plan, 40 acres of the 50-acre plot of farmland would be covered with solar panels capable of generating 8.5 megawatts of power during the power plant’s 25-year lifespan.
Experts believe that a single megawatt of solar energy can, roughly speaking, power 164 homes. So, 8.5 megawatts would power 1,394 homes. Interestingly, a megawatt of solar power is not as efficient as energy from coal power plants.
Solstice Renewables would sell the energy to the National Grid.
While villagers say they are not against solar-panel farms in principle, they are concerned that they are a blight, lead to increased traffic, and would eventually result in the hillside no longer being classified as green belt land.”
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Bird, Steven. Daily Mail 14 October 2014.