Sir – I read Dr Lawrence Haar’s article (First Person, October 10) on the proposed solar farm at Witney with some astonishment.
Of course, he is perfectly entitled to oppose the application on planning grounds (and I would encourage everyone to engage with the planning process to express their views) but his claim that “the price of electricity generated by a solar array can be 13 times greater than combined cycle gas turbines” and that “coal-fired stations are even cheaper per kWh generated” is not borne out by any of the Government studies of comparative energy costs.
According to several recent UK studies, the cost of new solar power (excluding subsidies) is less than twice that of ‘dirtier’ power generation sources and falling rapidly. The gap is being narrowed because the cost of new solar panels is plummeting and the cost of fossil fuels rising rapidly.
And if the damaging effects of the carbon emissions from the latter are included in the cost calculations then the price of solar is already on a par with more conventional sources.
If we are to avoid damaging climate change, we need to embrace renewable sources of power — and solar PV has an important part of play in the mix. And at a time when conventional energy prices are rising (a new round of price increases by the Big Six has just kicked off), we would be foolish to ignore renewable sources of energy which generate free power in use.
Craig Simmons, Oxfordshire Green Party, Oxford
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