Taiyo Power & Storage is undertaking a full re-consultation for its proposed renewable energy scheme at Gowerton. The purpose of the full re-consultation is to allow the community and interested stakeholders to provide feebakc on our latest revised proposals.

 

The key refinements introduced to this latest scheme are summarised below:

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• (i) All solar arrays have been removed from the fields located to the south of the river Afon Llan. This is due to ecology. These fields will be retained for full continued agricultural use. These proposed modifications have reduced the development areas within the planning application boundary. By removing the arrays to the south of Afon LLan the Applicant has also taken out the need for any associated directional drilling works under Afon Llan. Solar arrays have also been removed from a further two fields located due south of Glasfryn Terrace due to ecological stepwise considerations. Following the exclusion of five land parcels (as described above), the Applicant has sought to relocate some of the PV modules within the retained fields, thus achieving a more efficient use of the retained fields.

   

• (ii) Reconfiguration of the battery energy storage system and customer substation compound.

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• (iii) Alternative cable route - The proposals presented during the first round of statutory consultation showed three cable routing options, which would all traverse agricultural fields and local highways to the south of the river Afon Llan. These three routing options are no longer available to the Applicant. An alternative cabling route is therefore required to connect to the existing pylon located off Ystrad Road.To this end, the Applicant is now proposing to reroute the cable trench along the existing local highways (namely Swansea Road, Carmarthen Road, Ystrad Road and Denver Road).  In addition, a second point of connection option is being introduced to the scheme and this is located to the north off Carmarthenshire Road. The planning application boundary has been extended to accommodate these changes.   

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All local residents, businesses and organisations may now express interest in sharing ownership of the proposed solar power station by contacting Community Energy Wales.

 

www.communityenergywales.org.uk/en/contact-us

 

All local residents, businesses and organisations may now read about the latest detailed proposals, further to months of technical surveys and consultations, from the DOWNLOADS section of this website.

 

The Welsh Government has assessed that this proposed nationally significant scheme would not cause significant adverse environmental impacts. Biodiversity enhancements will include a wide corridor of habitat creation along the Afon Llan, restoration of an area of priority SINC (Site of Importance for Nature Conservation) habitat, arable bird mitigation providing foraging habitat and the enhancement and extension of habitat for reptiles. The plans also include provision for extensive sheep grazing amongst the solar arrays, allowing for continued agricultural production on the land in tandem with renewable energy generation.