Kernow Solar Park, 5 MW Project - Powersystems UK Ltd

Cornwall Council

The Kernow solar scheme is located at St Mawgan near to Newquay Cornwall airport.

Project Facts and Figures

Project Value	£250,000
Project Duration	2 Months
Services	Electrical Infrastructure, Grid Connection & Balance of Plant
Market Sector	Renewable Energy, Solar Farm

Total Installed Capacity	5 MW
Connection Voltage	11 kV
Length of Onsite 11 kV Cabling	5 km

Kernow Solar Park scope of work and major design considerations:

Powersystems were responsible for the design, installation, testing and commissioning of the electrical infrastructure associated with the construction of the 5 MW solar park, Kernow Solar Farm, St Mawgan near to Newquay Cornwall airport.

The Kernow solar park scheme saw the development of a 5 MW solar park at St Mawgan, near to Newquay Cornwall airport, producing an initial income of around £700,000 per year and enough power to run 1,000 homes.

The plan for the solar park was to supply power to the national grid, but also directly to the Cornwall Council owned Newquay Airport. This was to help to reduce the Airport’s carbon footprint and save money.

Both of the Point of Connections (POC) exported into the same Western Power Distribution (WPD) 11 kV network

Kernow Solar Park was a tangible demonstration of the Council’s tenacity and leadership. At that time, they were leading the way with their own development, showing full commitment to a Green Cornwall Strategy.

The Kernow Solar park project aimed to generate renewable electricity equivalent to almost 5 per cent of the Council’s carbon footprint.

The power supplied from the solar farm would greatly assist the Airport’s aspiration to make their operations carbon neutral, helping them to become one of the UK’s greenest airports. They were working towards certification through the Airports Council International (ACI) Carbon Accreditation Scheme and being able to source their electricity directly from the solar farm aimed to dramatically reduce their emissions.

The interconnection between the Newquay Airport 11 kV ring switchboard and the North site 1.5 MW Solar Array invertor substation was made via a private wire 11 kV connection.

The major items of electrical plant that Powersystems designed, supplied, installed, and commissioned were:

11 kV cable pull between Newquay Airport substation and the solar farm
11 kV ring main unit and GRP substation building installation
Cable installation and terminating, earthing
Construct substation base
Supply, installation, testing and commissioning of Elster A1700 tariff metering
Extension of the Newquay Airport HV substation Airfield ring switchboard, and to provide import metering on the 11kV switchboard
HV cable trenching works
Full installation test and commissioning

Powersystems partnerships:

The Solar Farm was constructed by Solar Century.

There is currently 1.5MW of solar PV connected between the Cornwall Airport Newquay and the solar farm via a private wire to the St Columb Major substation. This is sold to the airport at a slightly reduced rate of 15% on retail price. The private wire is rated to be able to take up to 6.7 MW of capacity, and there is therefore the potential to increase the energy delivered to the Cornwall Airport Newquay.

There is also an additional southern grid connection to a second substation (St. Mawgan) which is currently where the remaining 3.5 MW solar farm renewable energy generation is exported to the electricity network using a separate PPA agreement.

What the client wanted:

Powersystems carried out the construction role for both the grid connection and private wire network and were appointed by Cornwall Council. Powersystems were utilised as the conduit between the client and WPD in gaining design approval for the substation, connection works and receiving WPD sign off for the build.