By Scott Wright
DRINKS giant Diageo has received planning permission to develop a giant solar farm in Leven.
The Johnnie Walker and Gordon’s Gin maker will begin installing 9,000 solar panels, covering an area equal to eight football pitches, from July, after getting the nod from Fife Council.
Diageo, which submitted the plans for approval last July, said the solar array will have the capacity to produce 4.1 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 2,500 homes for a year – while removing carbon dioxide emissions by about 830 tonnes a year.
The solar farm will be installed on vacant land on the south-east corner of Diageo’s 150-acre plant in Leven, and will work on the project alongside E.ON and Scottish-based Emtec Energy. The project is scheduled to be completed and generating power by early2023.
Gavin Brogan, operations director at Diageo Leven, said: “It’s fantastic to make this project a reality, creating a more resilient and energy-efficient plant. Working in partnership with E.ON and Emtec Energy, the solar array will generate nearly a quarter of our annual energy use and is a fantastic step forward towards meeting our net-zero commitments.
“Diageo is well-rooted in Leven and we are committed to playing a positive role in our local community, so we will continue to invest in projects like this one to improve our impact on the environment and future-proof our operations. We have a number of those projects in the pipeline, including looking into sustainable heating solutions which the solar farm development will help to power.”
Stuart Beasley of E.ON said: “With our partners Emtec we are ideally placed to help Diageo in their ambitions to create a more sustainable business, as well as showing employees and customers the tangible changes they are making in the face of the climate emergency.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel