Rent per acre for ground solar?

pellow

Member
Location
Newquay
What is a good rent now? was phoned this week and offered around £1000/acre but was told at a meeting should be aiming for £2000/acre
 

Against_the_grain

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
S.E
You will do well to get £2000, probably realistically somewhere between the two but it does depend on how good your potential site is and how hard you can pressure the developers ;)
 

wobs

Member
Location
Northumberland
At that price much better to lease land for private allotments,get to sell them your muck also.some right handy lads end up as plot holders.
basically every profession you can think of is now into allotment gardening.
 

pellow

Member
Location
Newquay
At that price much better to lease land for private allotments,get to sell them your muck also.some right handy lads end up as plot holders.
basically every profession you can think of is now into allotment gardening.

the ground is pretty crap and wouldn't suit allotments or much else, south facing 2 power lines crossing it, pretty much the perfect site for solar
 

Honest john

Member
Location
Fenland
What is a good rent now? was phoned this week and offered around £1000/acre but was told at a meeting should be aiming for £2000/acre
Pellow.
Its all to do with the grid connection.
If you have the right grid connection close and possible it may be possible to get over £1000 acre.
Most agents have a man in the renewable game, or leave it to an independent., is my advice.
Net Work Power are getting very greedy.
We have 5 meg connected so got the tie shirt.
 

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
I was told by a farmer last week here in Cornwall that no more solar here at the moment and that the grid is overloaded. This is a man who started a solar project in 2011 and then it all came out again. :confused:
 
Told last week the plug been pulled as we reach grid parity by 2016. At the same time the offer of £800/ac was going to be reduced. I wanted double that anyway to go ahead with a 33KVA size operation which has been on and off the cards for 18 months.

If you think about it your locking in for 25 years. In that time the company you originally sign up with, will probably be sold 2 or 3 times so you end up with people owning it you have no idea who they are. This worries me when it comes to removing them at the 25 year lease end. Also the prices are not enough which I know index linking helps but its linked to the RPI and it should be linked to that as well as food/land prices.

4t of wheat at £250/t is not far off profit wise as the £800/ac offer above. Then take into account no SFP and potential inheritance tax issues it really is not worth it is it!

You need to be thinking along the lines of below because of the 25yr timescale:

5t/ac of wheat @ £400/t
Increase in land rental value
Increase in land value
Loss of inheritance tax ability
Potential for rates after its removed
Cost of removing it

All that points towards £5,000/acre rental as an average over the 25 years.
 

Salopian_Will

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Shropshire
Told last week the plug been pulled as we reach grid parity by 2016. At the same time the offer of £800/ac was going to be reduced. I wanted double that anyway to go ahead with a 33KVA size operation which has been on and off the cards for 18 months.

If you think about it your locking in for 25 years. In that time the company you originally sign up with, will probably be sold 2 or 3 times so you end up with people owning it you have no idea who they are. This worries me when it comes to removing them at the 25 year lease end. Also the prices are not enough which I know index linking helps but its linked to the RPI and it should be linked to that as well as food/land prices.

4t of wheat at £250/t is not far off profit wise as the £800/ac offer above. Then take into account no SFP and potential inheritance tax issues it really is not worth it is it!

You need to be thinking along the lines of below because of the 25yr timescale:

5t/ac of wheat @ £400/t
Increase in land rental value
Increase in land value
Loss of inheritance tax ability
Potential for rates after its removed
Cost of removing it

All that points towards £5,000/acre rental as an average over the 25 years.

Those are all big ifs. Bird in the hand and all that.

Say you have 30 acres out of 500 acres in a solar farm. Its not a bad way of diversifying your risk out of 4t @ £250/t every year (which is incredibly optimistic, every year).

I would bite someones arm off for £800/acre every year. Put it in a SIP and get the pension benefits. PS the bonds being offered are very meaty.
 
Will,

To me its the farmer taking all the risk though:

1. Land out of production for 25 years
2. Assuming somebody will remove the panels after 25 years
3. Loosing subsidy on the land
4. Taking inheritance tax risks
5. Potentially loosing out on higher commodity prices

£800/ac on 30 acres is £25,000/year. After tax, what about £20,000?

Is £20,000/year worth the risk of all the above?
 

Against_the_grain

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
S.E
lets be frank what are you going to return form a decent winter cereal crop? The maximum i suggest you will make is £450/acre PROFIT. £800.acre without getting out of bed and regardless of whether there is snow on the ground in April seems pretty good. I would suggest £800 is at the low end of the scale also. Also its a grey area atm but if your grazing it, potential to keep sfp and possibly even enter into ELS...
 

Salopian_Will

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Shropshire
Will,

To me its the farmer taking all the risk though:

1. Land out of production for 25 years
2. Assuming somebody will remove the panels after 25 years
3. Loosing subsidy on the land
4. Taking inheritance tax risks
5. Potentially loosing out on higher commodity prices

£800/ac on 30 acres is £25,000/year. After tax, what about £20,000?

Is £20,000/year worth the risk of all the above?

Well get it set up and sell the freehold of the land subject to the lease and let someone else deal with the problems you raise. Then you can buy 150 acres from your 30 acre starting point.

Farmer taking all the risk? From your point of view you want to forgo the risk of having a solar farm because you think getting 4t/acre @ £250 is less risky. Well I admire your optimism, skills in growing continuous wheat @ 4t/acre and managing to sell it for £250/t every year - oh and managing to increase both in line with inflation!

Also most systems still allow grazing and SFP to claimed.

Bonkers to overlook it in my view.
 
Well I'm bonkers then because I said no and we have all the grid connection required etc.

My main point is your getting into bed with somebody for 25 yrs which is an awful long time. £800/ac is no where near enough. Double it and I'll have a rethink.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Told last week the plug been pulled as we reach grid parity by 2016. At the same time the offer of £800/ac was going to be reduced. I wanted double that anyway to go ahead with a 33KVA size operation which has been on and off the cards for 18 months.

If you think about it your locking in for 25 years. In that time the company you originally sign up with, will probably be sold 2 or 3 times so you end up with people owning it you have no idea who they are. This worries me when it comes to removing them at the 25 year lease end. Also the prices are not enough which I know index linking helps but its linked to the RPI and it should be linked to that as well as food/land prices.

4t of wheat at £250/t is not far off profit wise as the £800/ac offer above. Then take into account no SFP and potential inheritance tax issues it really is not worth it is it!

You need to be thinking along the lines of below because of the 25yr timescale:

5t/ac of wheat @ £400/t
Increase in land rental value
Increase in land value
Loss of inheritance tax ability
Potential for rates after its removed
Cost of removing it

All that points towards £5,000/acre rental as an average over the 25 years.


I hope that I can do 5t/acre at £400 t. The rest of the farm will be doing rather nicely thankyou.
If the price of land goes up then it will go up on all the farm including the solar park.
Why would you have rates when it is removed?
The cost of removing it should be covered by a bond or the scrap value of all that metal.

I am more worried that it may be classed as permanent pasture and therefore not ploughable for crops again. You can cover the IHT with life insurance. Are we sure that there will be APR in 25yrs time anyway. If Miliband gets in we're probably all stuffed anyway with his marxist upbringing.
 
I hope that I can do 5t/acre at £400 t. The rest of the farm will be doing rather nicely thankyou.
If the price of land goes up then it will go up on all the farm including the solar park.
Why would you have rates when it is removed?
The cost of removing it should be covered by a bond or the scrap value of all that metal.

I am more worried that it may be classed as permanent pasture and therefore not ploughable for crops again. You can cover the IHT with life insurance. Are we sure that there will be APR in 25yrs time anyway. If Miliband gets in we're probably all stuffed anyway with his marxist upbringing.

The 5t/ac is thinking that we ought to see some developments in plant breeding within 25 years surely. I know we have seen NOTHING in the last 50 years because our yields are the same as my gradnfather was growing, but we live in hope that this silly levies we pay will actually be worth it in the end and not turn out to be one massive con ;);)

The £400/t comes again from looking forward. Bigger populations over the world. Same land mass should push prices up a bit?

Rates when removed because by 25yrs time the government will have changed the rating rules and once something is rated it will state rated. Hell there is even talk of farm rates isnt there?

Getting bond up front for removal is impossible and what will it cost in 25 years to remove it? when some idiot somewhere decides solar panels are poisonous and they become the same as asbestos?

With a 25 yr deal on land you own you need to look at the worst case scenario and not the best case scenario.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Is your glass always half empty? You have to take the odd risk in life otherwise you get nowhere.
I see it as a way of being able to afford to buy more land, that would otherwise be a struggle. We'll see in 2040 who was right.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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