Poor weather costs council tens of thousands of pounds

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

Poorer weather this year has seen a council miss out on tens of thousands of pounds by impacting energy generation from its solar farm.

Monmouthshire County Council was hoping to earn a £400,000 profit from its solar farm in Crick, near Caerwent during the current financial year.

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Expectations

But rainy and overcast days have put paid to that and the council has reduced its expectations by £129,000 – though it is still expected to generate a £271,000 surplus.

Finance chief Jonathan Davies said: “The poor summer weather has played a part this year and that has had an impact and we also had some generating outages that have impacted on the ability to deliver that additional income, we hoped would be in line with the good weather we had in 2023/24.”

Usk and Llanbadoc independent councillor had questioned the shortfall in predicted profit when the council’s performance and overview scrutiny committee was updated on the authority’s current financial position.

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