Helping a council and hospital meet decarbonization targets with a solar farm

Coed Ely Solar Farm

Coed Ely Solar Farm is an innovative renewable project powering a south Wales hospital with low-carbon electricity and feeding energy back into the national grid.

Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council engaged our multidisciplinary team of engineers and renewable energy specialists as lead consultant for the project. We worked on all stages, from feasibility, grid connection, planning application, design and procurement, through to construction, energisation and operation and maintenance.

The solar farm provides a valuable new use for 84 acres of brownfield site, a former coal tip. While the soil quality on this reclaimed colliery site is unsuitable for crops, it does support grazing. Through the Council’s scheme, grazing rights for animals have been maintained.

Our main challenge was overcoming the site’s topography. A detailed optioneering study used 3D solar panel modelling to assess panel orientation, layout and row spacing to maximise the potential energy yield of the site, while working with the existing gradients to minimise groundworks and supporting structures.

We coordinated input from internal and external technical and environmental specialists to successfully achieve planning permission. These included ecology, archaeology, landscape and visual impact, land grade classification, transport planning, flood risk and drainage.

The drainage design was developed in accordance with the requirements of the Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) and negotiated approval with the SuDS Approval Body (SAB). This included extensive engagement with the local authority and SAB to agree the compliance strategy whilst ensuring the ongoing maintenance and safety of the coal tip was not compromised. We handled the full photovoltaic (PV) design including mounting, electrical infrastructure, panels, site access, foundation design, and layout. Cost modelling and the long-term financial benefits were completed for the local authority in keeping with its climate change strategy.

We also supported the council in procuring the contractor that oversaw the build phase and assisted with the operations and maintenance (O&M) programme that followed. We acted as owners engineer through the construction and O&M stages to ensure the delivery of the scheme was fully compliant with the employer’s requirements and delivered the required outcomes.

The site contains more than 9,000 PV panels facing east and west, working with the site topography to enable continual use throughout the day. The panels were installed at a low pitch to reduce potential glare. A 3.2km underground private wire cable allows the scheme to export one megawatt (MW) of electricity to Royal Glamorgan Hospital, helping drive down carbon emissions for the NHS. On peak summer days, the solar farm is expected to meet 100 percent of the hospital’s electricity demand.

The solar farm will save an estimated 7,355 tonnes of carbon emissions during its 40-year lifespan and connect five megawatts of power directly to the National Grid.