Hirst to install £1.5m solar power system in Gloucestershire, UK
by Ashley Seager, The Guardian, November 19 2007
Source: Guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/19/solarpower.energy
Damien Hirst is breathing fresh life into the renewable energy industry by ordering the country’s second largest solar power system. Hirst is to spend up to £1.5m on a 310kw solar power system for his studio buildings in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Only the Cooperative Insurance Society Tower in Manchester has a bigger system. Hirst’s solar panels will generate enough electricity to power up to 150 homes, and it is not clear whether it will feed into the national grid.
The panels will spread over some 1,800 square metres and will cover all three of Hirst’s warehouses, one of which is his formaldehyde studio, presumably where his famous preserved shark was prepared. Hirst’s agents were unavailable to comment, but sources said various companies had tendered for the huge project. Such is the small scale of solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment in Britain that Hirst’s system will account for around 2% of the total 12 megawatt peak capacity in Britain. Germany has 200 times as much.
Environmentalists were cheered by the news. Dave Timms, economics campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “This is great news. Good on Damien Hirst. He’ll probably do more to boost confidence in the UK solar industry than the government has over the past few years.
“However, we can’t rely on the environmentally aware wealthy to nurture the low carbon industries. We need a feed-in tariff scheme which would reward all businesses and individuals who invest in small-scale renewable technologies with a guaranteed premium price for the clean electricity they generate.” He was referring to the system brought in by Germany and many other countries in recent years which has boosted many green technologies.
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform welcomed the news: “Reducing carbon emissions is not just about governments and big institutions. Everyone has to do their bit. There is still funding available under the Low Carbon Buildings programme if anyone wants to follow Damien’s lead.”