Farm Power: Putting Agriculture on the Grid

By 2020, UK farms and rural communities will be making a significant contribution to a resilient, low-carbon energy system Help farmers make informed choices about the best technologies and options for their businesses. Work with Government and business to: o Break-down the barriers that are stifling investment in sustainable farm-based energy; o Put in place a supportive regulatory, planning and financial environment; o Ensure that energy assets are located appropriately, and are designed to maximise co-benefits; Strive to create markets for sustainable farm-based energy, both within local communities, and along the corporate agricultural supply chain (and beyond).  Work to ensure that farms and rural communities have easy, fair and affordable access to the grid. This is an ongoing project that was launched in late 2014 to coincide with the release of the Exploring the Size of the Prize report, which demonstrated that there is at least 10GW of untapped resource across UK farms through our research, and that it's quite easy to get up to 20GW, too – especially if we embrace ground-based solar. Since the launch the vision has continued to attract new members and reach new fields. The Farm Power coalition is now focused on making the Farm Power vision a reality, through delivering workstreams that tackle key barriers, starting with grid access and then looking at developing a model for an optimal system of distributed energy that can be replicated by landowners, farmers and communities across the UK. We also hope to work with retailers by extending on the good work they've done to date through committing to buying “home-grown energy” at scale. Farmers Weekly will be delivering their communication campaign directly to farmers throughout 2015. Nicky Conway - n.conway@forumforthefuture.org