Farming for renewables
Bank House Farm, The Delph, Spalding Eco farmer Eddy Whitfield who is growing bio crops Pictured with dog Poppy
Eco farmer Edward Whitfield is pushing ahead with his venture to produce renewable energy on his farmland at The Delph in Spalding and at Market Deeping.
When we spoke to Edward a year ago, he had put solar panels on his grain store roof, which were creating 63kW of electricity, and he was one of just a couple of local farmers growing miscanthus, a crop used as biomass fuel by power stations.
During the year Edward has added more solar panels and a couple of small wind turbines to create extra revenue for the farm, but says: “One of the problems with all this is not just the building, the planning complications and the difficulty of actually dealing with some of the government bodies to register and commission these projects. We are still having problems with certification with Ofgen so that we can actually get the feed-in tarrifs.” Yet farmers could be helping to contribute as much as a quarter of renewable energy targets in future, according to the NFU.
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Weather for Spalding
Friday 24 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 5 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 35 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 5 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: North
