Renewable sites › Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage
Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage
Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage is an operational 40 MW solar farm in Colchester. Planning permission was granted on 20 March 2023, 7 months after submission. Operator of record: Low Carbon Solar Park 22 Limited.
Planning and build timeline
| Application submitted | 22 August 2022 |
| Permission granted | 20 March 2023 7 months after submission |
| Operational | not recorded |
Screening a site of your own?
Colchester approves 95% of solar farms. Redline puts that number, and everything else the record holds, against your own boundary: the authority’s actual approval rate and decision times, every designation inside the red line, agricultural grade, 1 m LIDAR earthworks, how contested the grid is, and yield with a P90 — before you spend on a consultant.
Arrives prefilled with Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage’s recorded coordinate — swap in your own postcode or coordinates.
What this site sits on
The recorded coordinate falls on land surveyed as Grade 3 agricultural land. The published survey does not split Grade 3 into 3a and 3b, so this alone does not settle whether the land counts as best and most versatile.
REPD gives one representative coordinate per scheme, not the site boundary, so this describes the point on record rather than the whole site — a large site can straddle a designation edge. Boundaries come from planning.data.gov.uk, which publishes for England only.
Colchester’s record on solar
Colchester has decided 19 solar farms and approved 95%, taking a median of 3 months. See every solar farm decision in Colchester →
Other built sites within 15 km
| Site | MW | Distance |
|---|---|---|
Battery · Operational | — | 0 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 2.3 | 1.6 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 5 | 1.8 km |
Landfill Gas · Operational | 3.9 | 2.1 km |
Landfill Gas · Operational | 2.7 | 2.3 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 5.6 | 2.6 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 49 | 3.5 km |
Solar Photovoltaics · Operational | 6.15 | 6.6 km |
How big is Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage?
Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage has a recorded installed capacity of 40 MW. That figure is the capacity registered in REPD, which is the scheme as consented — the metered output of a site can differ.
Who operates Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage?
REPD records the operator as Low Carbon Solar Park 22 Limited. Ownership of built renewable assets changes hands regularly and REPD is published quarterly, so treat this as the operator of record rather than confirmation of who owns it today.
When was Birch Solar Farm & Battery Storage approved and built?
The application was submitted on 22 August 2022. Permission was granted on 20 March 2023, 7 months later. REPD does not record an operational date.
Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD), Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Open Government Licence v3.0, plus planning designation boundaries from planning.data.gov.uk (England only). REPD is published quarterly and covers schemes of roughly 150 kW and above. Capacity is the installed capacity on record, not metered generation. Operator is the operator of record at the last extract, not confirmation of present ownership. Reference 12101.
Novarly Parcel · official public data, read properly · parcel.novarly.com
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