BayWa plugs in 76 MW of solar farms in UK

The renewables unit of German diversified group BayWa AG (ETR:BYW6) has hooked to the UK grid 76 MWp of solar power generating capacity last month, it announced on Wednesday.

More specifically, BayWa re renewable energy GmbH has switched on seven solar farms in locations across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Connecting them to the grid in March 2017 has ensured their accreditation for Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) 1.2 promotional programmes in England and Wales as well as for ROC 1.4 in Northern Ireland.

BayWa re said it has financed all of the projects and expects to sell the solar farms in the course of the year. The largest one of the plants is the 46-MWp Bann Road facility in Northern Ireland. The asset has a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with local utility SSE Airtricity. At the same time, Centrica Plc (LON:CNA) buys the renewable energy certificates.

"After realising 130MWp last year, we have continued our success this year despite the declining feed-in tariff. We’ve been able to implement a total plant output of more than 460MW to date in the solar, wind and bioenergy sectors across the UK,” said Matthias Taft, board member of BayWa AG. The firm will now focus on the operations and maintenance (O&M) sector, he added.

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