Manikata solar farm raises concern about rural impact

The Environment and Resources Authority says the erection of 6,000 photovoltaic panels on two massive greenhouses in Manikata is “excessive” and should not ideally be located in open countryside.

The 3.5m-high greenhouses occupy the equivalent land area of three football grounds’ worth of agricultural land in Manikata, off Triq il-Biedja.

The ERA is warning that approval will result in negative visual impacts.

While affirming that in principle it is in favour of renewable energy generation through PV facilities, these should be located “in appropriate locations that do not involve the uptake of undeveloped land”.

The development is being proposed by a registered farmer who owns a part of the site.

The planning policy regulating the development of solar farms excludes such developments in agricultural areas. According to the policy, which is still awaiting final approval, “solar farms should not take up virgin land, or agricultural land”.   

In fact the policy steers solar farms towards areas of low landscape sensitivity like quarry sites.

A Strategic Environment Assessment is currently being conducted to assess the impact of the policy on 27 quarries located in Natura 2000 sites.

Most solar farms approved since 2013 have been located in quarries or former landfills. These include the already approved Bengħisa solar farm constructed on the site of a former dump, covering 29,000 square metres of land and producing a total of 2,400kWh of energy.

Another large private solar farm was approved on a 77,000-sq.m-backfilled quarry in Mgarr, beneath the Falka Gap ridge. The privately-owned farm includes 16,896 panels, generating 8.65 million units of clean energy per year, which are fed into the national power grid.

But a small number solar panels have been approved on the open countryside on top of greenhouses. The rural policy of 2014 encourages farmers to opt for greenhouse development to boost incomes through “intensive crop cultivation” and overcome climatic constraints on fruit and vegetable production.

But no policy currently regulates ‘solar greenhouses’. The PA has already approved an 11,500sq.m solar farm at Fiddien in Rabat but refused another proposal in the sensitive area of Munxar in Marsaskala, where greenhouses were set to cover 4,000 sq.m of land.

Over the past weeks, two other applications for greenhouse developments with overlying solar panels have been proposed.

A 2.2MW photovoltaic plant proposed by Electrofix Group is being proposed on a 26,000sq.m plot of agricultural land, along Triq Burmarrad  and Triq Is-Sardin in the Burmarrad hamlet. A smaller ‘solar’ greenhouse which utilizes eco-friendly aquaponics, is being proposed by Luxury Living Technology on 873sq.m of agricultural land along Mdina Road in Mgarr.