Client Profile –Michael Eavis talks about his new solar energy installation.


What comes after oil?


Mark Neath, Associate Director, Renewable Energy


Dairy Farmer, festival organiser and long term Old Mill client Michael Eavis received a lot of publicity in the autumn from putting solar panels on the roof of his dairy unit.


However, this was not a spur of the moment happening to capitalise on Feed in Tariffs (FiTs) and the fashion of the moment but the eventual success of a long term project which fitted in well with his aims and beliefs.


The Glastonbury festival has always had a ‘green’ element to it. The Croissant Neuf renewable energy circus has been attending for many years and a chap called Dale used to erect a windmill to provide power to recharge mobile phones. Mr Eavis describes Dale as a ‘real hippy’ and remembers negotiations about help to erect and take down posts. He chuckled over an article he saw in a paper recently that Dale’s company had been sold for £30m!


Mr Eavis feels that farmers and others should do what they can to generate renewable energy – every little helps in the face of dwindling reserves of oil, though as a former Somerset coal miner you note an element of wistfulness when he speculates on using some more of the coal reserves still left in the country. He is however sceptical about the idea of covering multiple acres with solar voltaic panels.


His project at Worthy Farm had been in gestation for almost five years. When they rebuilt his cattle shed they utilised the lie of the land to roof it with a massive south facing mono pitch roof which could be covered with panels. He had been slowly progressing down the route of getting a grant for this but the advent of FiTs last spring threw up the more attractive option – it is not possible to get both. A financial package was put in place with


Triodos Bank though he had to put up around 15% himself. Payback is expected over approximately 12 years.


For his Photovoltaic panels he was talking to Solarsense Bristol, who were his leading advisors. They manufacture the panels in Durham and he went up to see the factory. He noted that some of their production was being exported to large German companies. This tends to overturn assumptions that all panels are imported with questionable availability. He had to negotiate on price and realising the PR advantages for Solarsense feels he got a good deal.


Michael Eavis


Mr Eavis proudly showed me the impressive generator house he has had built and which has even won praise from Western Power who had been very sceptical until they saw it. He says one of the major obstacles to overcome was the huge amount of paperwork that had to be filled in to be allowed to generate electricity – one form alone had 427 questions and wanted to know where he was disposing of his nuclear waste – there seems to be only one form for all! He was fortunate in having a retired local government officer to help him through the maze.


As we sat there talking he commented that he had 20 people at present working on the farm and that although it was a seriously overcast day all the energy being used was ‘free’. He would certainly encourage farmers to seriously investigate whether there is a scheme suitable for them.


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