We would like to thank everyone who engaged with the early design process for The Droves Solar Farm. Today we are publishing a report, summarising the feedback we received during the early-stage workshops held in September and October 2024.

The report provides a summary of these workshops and outlines the feedback received.  It sets out the key themes and explains how we are working to incorporate comments into the master planning process for The Droves Solar Farm, including how we refine the early design proposals.

The report is available to view and download here.

About the Project

The Droves Solar Farm (The Project) is proposed to be located with battery storage on land north of Swaffham and south of Castle Acre, West Norfolk.

If consented, The Droves Solar Farm could generate up to 500 megawatts (MWac) of renewable energy, enough to power approximately 115,000 homes annually. The battery storage component of the Project would store surplus energy and supply it to the national grid when needed.  The applicant for The Droves Solar Farm will be The Droves Solar Farm Limited, a subsidiary of IGP.

About Island Green Power

IGP is a leading developer of utility-scale solar projects and battery storage systems. We operate in the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. Our mission is to help countries accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to solar power by making more renewable energy possible, drastically reducing carbon emissions and contributing to global net zero targets.

What’s happened so far

We are committed to working with local communities to develop our proposals for The Droves Solar Farm. As part of our early engagement, we held a series of ‘early engagement workshops’ in September and October 2024.

These workshops form an important part of the non-statutory consultation process. We invited local councillors, community groups and technical specialists to learn more about the proposals and participate in a ‘master-planning’ session to help us to refine our early design plans.

Our two in-person workshops were held in King’s Lynn and Swaffham. We also held three virtual technical workshops using Microsoft Teams

Next Steps

Thank you to everyone who gave their time to provide feedback at our workshops. This information is invaluable and will be factored into the masterplanning process for The Droves Solar Farm, including how we refine the early design proposals.

During our statutory consultation, currently scheduled to take place in spring/summer 2025, a more detailed design will be presented, along with our Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC) and Preliminary Environmental Information Report (PEIR).

The SoCC will describe how we plan to engage with the local communities as part of the statutory consultation. We will consult with Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) on our approach to statutory consultation before publishing this statement and launching the statutory consultation

We will hold a number of public consultation events at venues local to the proposed Site. We will also be hosting online webinars for those who cannot attend in-person events.

In the meantime, engagement will continue with key stakeholders, including local parishes, community groups, charities and landowners. We will also be engaging with statutory consultees, LPAs, environmental groups and others to refine our proposals.

Find out more 

If you have any further comments in the meantime or would like to be added to our mailing list, we encourage you to contact us via email at info@drovessolarfarm.co.uk or call our community relations freephone at 0800 0129 154. You can also find the latest information on our website.