5 comments so far.MEPA gauging interest in committment to development of solar farms
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The Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) with the Ministry of Energy and Conservation of Water are currently working on a Solar Farm Planning Poicy, for the development of solar farms, under the Environment and Development Planning Act.
Prior to the formulation of this policy, the Authority is publishing a proposed objective which will serve to guide the drafting of this policy.
The proposed objective is:
to establish a policy framework which will define a solar farm, provide guidance for the location of new solar farms with a priority, but not exclusively, for large scale roof tops, for land already committed to industrial development and for quarries; and to identify potential impacts to be addressed
Individuals and organisations are being invited to send their submissions on this objective.
The Authority said that it is also seeking to gauge the interest of third parties that are interested in committing their roof space, open car parks, industrial land and quarries for the development of large scale solar farms.
Interested parties are to submit a clearly marked site plan with the exact measurements, together with their personal contact details to:
Director of Planning, Solar Farm Policy MEPA , St. Francis Ravelin, Floriana
or through e-mail: solarfarmpolicy@mepa.org.mt
Sometimes I think that MEPA is devoted to ruining this beautiful little island completely. Have any of them actually seen the effect that acres of solar panels have on the countryside. They are ugly to look at, and they kill any growth under them. Please don’t do it, this island is too small.The money they will bring in is not worth the devastation.
Unfortunately Sonia Malta along with the rest of the world has to look at alternative energy sources and solar is one of them. Whilst I agree that solar farms can be ugly affairs wind turbine farms are even worse as they are not only visibly ugly but create a horrible noise as well. Malta as you say is too small to be thinking of setting up solar farms and the last thing we want to see is the island surrounded by wind turbines. I think people should be encouraged to fit solar panels to their own properties with feedback meters. In the UK the problem is that you need a South facing roof to take full advantage of the panels but in Malta as properties have flat roofs this isn’t a problem. Also with new technology solar energy generation can be built into buildings at the design stage and this should be made compulsory for any new build.
Yes James, I absolutely agree with you. Commercial properties especially. Some factories have very large roof areas , ideal for solar panels.
It’s also important to remember that not all panels need to be seen. Building-integrated photovoltaic’s (BIPV) are PV materials that are used to replace conventional building materials in parts of the building at the construction stage. They can also be retrofitted in which case they are known as building-applied photovoltaic’s (BAPV). For flat roofs such as those in Malta thin film solar cells integrated to a flexible polymer roofing membrane can be used. Buildings can also make use of transparent and translucent photovoltaic’s in place of normal windows. These will control light and heat entering the building as well as generating electricity.
Its not just solar policy that we need in Gozo, but a strong Water Policy to safeguard spring natural water from greedy developers specially the Gozo Church big mistake at Nadur