Developer to provide solar power direct to Ibstock Brick in deal that should provide factory with around 30 per cent of its annual power demand
Lightsource BP has broken ground on a new 4.9MW solar project in Leicestershire that is set to provide power direct to one of the UK’s largest brick manufacturers.
In what is being hailed as a first for the UK brick industry, Lightsource BP has inked a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Ibstock Brick, which will make the brickworks at the company’s headquarters the first in the UK to be part-powered by a large scale renewables project.
The solar farm will be hard wired direct into Ibstock Brick’s private electricity network and is set to provide around 30 per cent of the site’s annual electricity demand.
The project has been fully-funded by Lightsource BP with Ibstock Brick purchasing the electricity generated from the installation via a 25-year agreement at a fixed rate. Lightsource BP said the deal would deliver “operational savings as well as sustainable benefits” for the manufacturer.
The companies added that they would now work together to potentially develop further solar solutions at Ibstock Brick’s other manufacturing plants across the UK.
“Our solar farms provide our customers with a reliable source of renewable energy whilst reducing their carbon footprint and electricity bills,” said Zosia Riesner, head of corporate PPA at Lightsource BP. “In our mission to drive the global energy transition landscape, our PPAs provide a risk-free, tailored solution that allows business to buy renewable energy competitively. As experts in the development, financing and operation of solar farms, we are the ideal business partner.”
Mark Brind, continuous improvement and dustainability director at Ibstock, said the deal provided a further addition to the company’s “multi-dimensional approach in our drive to reach our sustainability targets”.
He added that the project had been “particularly attractive” by the incorporation of a biodiversity enhancement plan and “the fact that the land could be used for both solar and agricultural use”.
The news comes just days after Lightsource BP announced the results of a successful grid balancing trial that allowed it to deliver solar power from one of its projects overnight.
