THE Island’s first solar farm has outperformed forecasts by as much as 30% – with Jersey Electricity hailing the sustainable energy source as an increasingly “stable” and “affordable” partner to the Island’s imported French power.
According to Jersey Electricity’s recently published annual report, the Moulin à Vent solar farm in St Clement had “materially outperformed expectations” since coming into operation.
JE said the 4.3MWp site had exceeded initial forecasts “by 25–30% to date”, which it attributed to the layout of the site, “improved panel efficiencies and favourable weather conditions”.
The company described the project as “a significant milestone” and “an important step towards energy independence”.
The firm’s chief executive Chris Ambler said: “With new projects delivering locally-generated power to the grid for the whole community, solar is becoming increasingly affordable, stable and complementary to our imported power from France.”
The project forms part of JE’s wider ‘Solar 5000’ strategy, which aims to generate enough solar energy to power the equivalent of 5,000 homes by 2030.
Installing two more ground-mounted solar farms in St John and St Mary would add a further 6.6MWp of capacity, the utility estimated.
Mr Ambler said that JE’s existing strategy to “import competitively priced low-carbon power from nuclear and certified hydro-electric sources while diversifying our energy mix with locally sourced renewable power continues to serve the Island well”.
“It has resulted in a market-leading average carbon intensity of distributed energy, and highlights a major advantage of electricity as the Island’s predominant energy source,” he continued, adding that the company was also “proud to have successfully sheltered [customers] from significant [price] increases over recent years, when European wholesale markets have spiked upwards. While prices elsewhere have eased, electricity is still substantially cheaper in Jersey than in many countries in Europe.”
Work is currently taking place on other ground-mounted solar developments, including at La Rue de Sorel in St John and Rue d’Olive in St Mary.
JE had also hoped to progress a development on Crown land at Belle Fontaine in St Martin.
But the utility company revealed in February that, following further research into the site’s land characteristics, agrivoltaic compatibility, feedback from stakeholders – and in “consultation with the Crown” – it had decided not to go ahead.
Nigel Jones, chair of environmental group Jersey in Transition, described the Moulin à Vent project’s initial performance as “encouraging”.
He also said that it demonstrated that the agrivoltaic model was “perfectly doable”.
“What I like about it in Jersey is that it keeps our money in the Island, because if we were importing the electricity, we would be paying the money over to EDF or somebody,” Mr Jones continued.
“Whereas this way they say they’ve used a local contractor to install them, it’s on locally-owned land, owned by a local farmer, it’s still in use for farming and the income from the electricity is staying in the Island in Jersey Electricity and these other people’s pockets – which means it’s circulating and recirculating in the local economy, rather than money being shipped off to France.”
He noted that he was in favour of both ground-mounted and rooftop solar.
JE has also had success with the latter, including developments at the Powerhouse, La Collette Power Station and Woodside Farm.
And in March, it was announced that a new partnership between JE and the government will see rooftop solar arrays installed across a range of public buildings.
Elsewhere in the report, JE highlighted growing momentum behind low-carbon heating, with demand for heat pumps reported to have reached record levels.
Mr Ambler said: “Our ‘heat pump first’ approach combined with government incentives drove strong levels of domestic fuel switches and we saw our strongest set of heat pump sales, suggesting a shift in consumer sentiment.”
The company said commercial demand for electrification had also been particularly strong, describing the past year as “our most positive year in a decade for switches outside of the post-Covid high”.
JE also revealed it had completed the transition of its own vehicle fleet from fossil fuels to electric “a year ahead of schedule” and around £1m under budget.
However, the utility said some operational vehicles still relied on hydrotreated vegetable oil biofuel because “there currently [is not] a viable electric equivalent available”.
The report showed JE reported group revenue of £146.2m for the year to September 2025 – up 8% on the previous year – while profit before tax fell from £15.1m to £14.2m amid major investment in infrastructure and renewable energy projects.
