Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners announced on Monday that its 373 megawatt (MWdc) Cleve Hill solar park in Kent has entered full commercial operation, making it the largest operational solar project in the United Kingdom to date.
The facility, located near Faversham on the north Kent coast, is now delivering power to the grid at 100% of its rated capacity. During commissioning in May, the project reached a peak output equivalent to 0.7% of national electricity demand, the company said.
“Cleve Hill sets a new benchmark for large-scale solar projects to help decarbonise the UK power system,” said Keith Gains, managing director at Quinbrook. “Reaching commercial operations is a major technical, construction and financial achievement for our teams, our partners and our investors.”
Cleve Hill is the first solar and battery storage development to be consented as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) in the UK. It is backed by what the company says is the largest financing ever completed for a solar-plus-storage project in the country. The funding includes a £218.5 million term loan and a £20 million VAT facility from Lloyds Bank and NatWest.
Construction is underway on a 150MW battery energy storage system (BESS) co-located with the solar array. Once operational, the combined project will become the largest solar-plus-storage facility ever built in the UK market.
Quinbrook said Cleve Hill will help avoid more than 142,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in its first year of operations and is expected to deliver over £114 million in local socio-economic benefits across its lifetime, including support for more than 2,500 jobs.
The project was granted development consent in May 2020 and began construction in early 2023, in partnership with Quinbrook’s affiliate Private Energy Partners.
The solar farm secured a Contract for Difference (CfD) through the UK government’s Low Carbon Contracts Company in Round 4 of the CfD scheme, and has a long-term corporate power purchase agreement with Tesco PLC—the largest of its kind for a UK solar project.
“Projects like Cleve Hill set new scale benchmarks that should increase confidence that the UK’s renewables targets can be achieved,” said Rory Quinlan, co-founder and managing partner at Quinbrook.
