ECOTRICITY’S plans to develop a series of sun parks – fields of photovoltaic panels producing electricity from sunlight and connecting directly into the UK grid – took a big step forward this week with the announcement of planning permission for its first project.

Permission for the energy provider’s first park – an array of panels located adjacent to one of its wind parks in Lincolnshire - has been granted by East Lindsey Council.

The firm expects to commence work at the site within just a few weeks and have it fully operational by March next year, which will make it the UK’s first large scale grid connected-sun park.

This project will also be one of the first in the world to combine the energy of both the wind and the sun into one. The two power sources are complementary and Ecotricity sees a major role for such hybrid energy parks in the future.

Its adjacent wind park at Fen Farm has been making green electricity since it was built in 2008. The PV panels will stand in 59 rows just 2 metres high on a 4.7 acre site.

Funded by the proceeds of its recently introduced Ecobonds, the site’s one-megawatt capacity will make enough green electricity for around 280 average homes each year for the next 25 years.

Ecotricity founder Dale Vince OBE said: "This is a really exciting new initiative for us and for the UK. "It is not just a new green power source we can harness on a large scale but also the chance to combine that with wind energy.

"The two are complementary technologies, for example, in winter when there is less sun there is typically more wind, and vice versa in the summer.

"This is real ‘power to the people’ stuff too – there is no better demonstration that the money we raise through our EcoBonds will go straight into building new sources of green energy for Britain."

Solar PV panels work in daylight even under the UK’s cloudy and dull skies, have almost no impact on the ground below, and are easily removable and almost completely recyclable at their end of their useful lives.

The ‘energy payback’ of the site – the time it takes to repay the energy used to build the panels – is expected to be just two years, and they will keep on producing clean electricity for a quarter of a century.

Currently Ecotricity has built and operates 51 windmills at 15 wind parks across the UK, which together save over 50,000 tonnes of C02 emissions escaping into the atmosphere every year.

For more information about the company’s Ecobonds visit www.ecotricity.co.uk/ecobonds