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Newmarket: Solar farms branded a "waste of money"

The Red Lodge site in Newmarket. Credit: ITV News Anglia

The firm behind an £8 million solar farm near Newmarket says large sites in the countryside, like theirs, are an inefficient way of creating electricity.

The company says around two thirds of the energy created by the site at Red Lodge is lost when it's transported.

Tim Dobson, from Switch 2 Renewable, says that means it's not producing enough electricity to be useful to the National Grid.

"The networks can't rely really on renewable energy that goes up and down.

It's all about having reliable energy because the grid is so old and, particularly between 4 o'clock and 7 o'clock where they really need capacity, they need to be able to rely on that so they rely on other sources.

So solar probably doesn't really help that at the moment."

– Tim Dobson, Switch 2 Renewable