Chandni Ruparelia, Island Green Power

Tackling UK solar roadblocks & bridging knowledge gaps

Island Green Power faced a dual challenge in its mission to foster a greener future.

Primarily, the UK’s intricate planning system posed significant delays in deploying large solar projects.

“I think both the challenges are also the opportunities. One of the big things actually is the planning system in the UK and how do we get projects through the planning system more effectively? How do we optimize all of the different information that developers have with planning inspectors?” says Chandni.

The company also encountered a knowledge gap among stakeholders, including planning inspectors, policymakers, and the general public, regarding the multifaceted benefits of solar energy—not merely in electricity generation but also in ecological enrichment.

“Right now, solar is something that's an asset class that's easily deployable, but it's taking a long time to do big solar in the UK. But it's also something that we're looking at quite closely, how do we improve the system? How do we work with policymakers? How do we work with stakeholders generally to actually educate them in terms of the projects – to educate them about solar, to educate them about the benefits of solar?” says Chandni.

“And it's not just solar as electricity generation, that's useful. As part of our projects, we are required to do biodiversity net gains, actually improving the ecology of the areas and surrounding areas as well. So, there's a lot of benefits that solar can bring and I think that's one of the challenges is trying to get the public to understand, obtain a balance between generation and providing clean energy and also food security as well.”

Streamlining solar operations with software

To address these challenges, Chandni and her team adopted Ansarada. The introduction of the Ansarada platform brought structure to the chaotic nature of managing multiple assets and transactions, offering an orderly and less burdensome system to facilitate the sale of projects and stakeholder interactions.

“I discovered Ansarada pretty early on when I joined Island Green Power. There weren't any really systems and process in place. I joined at the point where we were looking to sell a project and we had been using other applications that weren't particularly sophisticated and that's when I came across Ansarada through a mutual colleague,” says Chandni.

“I spoke to a couple of other different data site providers, and what I found about Ansarada was just it’s easy to speak to their customer services team. In terms of rolling out Ansarada in the business, it just seemed effortless.”

From chaos to clarity: Simplifying solar project success

Implementing Ansarada resulted in a more streamlined process for all parties involved in the asset transactions. Dashboards that housed all projects. This efficient system reduced anxiety and workload for the team at Island Green Power, leading to smoother transactions. Moreover, the company was able to focus on improving systems and working with stakeholders to educate and promote the wide-ranging advantages of solar projects, effectively contributing to local, national, and international green initiatives.

“Ansarada does actually bring a lot of order to the chaos when we're dealing with transactions on any transaction," says Chandni. "No matter how both parties are well aligned on commercial output and outcome, there's going to be different parties, different ways of dealing with things, and there's always a lot of hustle bustle. Having a properly structured data room really helps cut through some of that chaos and helps reduce the burden and the anxiety that I think people trying to deal with the transaction otherwise have.”