Jeremy Clarkson’s brewery embraces new practice in bid for better ‘efficiency and resilience’
Despite calling them ‘ugly’ just a matter of months ago, Jeremy Clarkson is set to install solar panels at his Hawkstone Brewery site on Diddly Squat Farm—a move hailed as the ‘natural next step’.
In January, the 66-year-old compared solar panels to having ‘an ugly wife or an uglycar’, adding that measures in pursuit of Net Zero are making British lives ‘more difficult’.
Nine months later, it seems as if the businessman has made a dramatic U-turn, announcing plans to embrace solar energy.
The Oxford Mail reported that Nottinghamshire-based business Geo Green Power has been appointed by Hawkstone to carry out its first solar panel installation at its premises in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire.
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The rooftop system, which Ben Bonham, Head Brewer of Hawkstone Brewery, said would help make brewing ‘more efficient and resilient’, will generate an estimated 24.25MWh of energy each year, saving 4.9 tonnes of CO2 annually, as per the businesses.
It will comprise Canadian Solar PV modules secured with Renusol fixings, alongside a SolarEdge inverter and optimisers, the outlet reported.
Work on the solar panels is expected to start this month.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve how we operate, and investing in solar energy is a natural next step for us,” Bonham explained.
Meanwhile, James Cunningham, managing director of Geo Green Power, said: “We’re incredibly excited to get started on this fantastic project and with our extensive solar experience within the hospitality industry, we know what a great opportunity this is for Hawkstone Brewery.
“It’s also brilliant to be working with a business which also champions agriculture and Britain’s farms.’
Last month, Clarkson appeared at the Conservative Party conference to reveal he was thinking of opening a bar abroad.
He claimed this was because he and other company owners, including farmers, were being ‘attacked’ from every angle by Labour tax policies, international conflict, and general rising costs, as per The Mirror.
When asked if he’d open an establishment in Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins’s constituency, Louth and Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, he said: “It’s funny you should say that. I’m looking quite hard into the possibility of opening another pub.
“But I can give you all a piece of information right now, it’s not going to be in the UK.”
He continued, asking why ‘anybody would set up a business in this country right now’.
“You go and find a country where you go, ‘That’s a good one, that will employ people and that will be good for farming and what have you’. We’ll see if we can do it abroad somewhere.”
“I probably won’t. But I’m dreaming of it.”
Farming has become ‘relentless’ in Britain, says Clarkson
Appearing alongside land agent and fellow Clarkson’s Farm star Charlie Ireland, the father of three used the opportunity to discuss how ‘relentless’ farming in the United Kingdom had become.
“It’s terrible, is the only way of describing it. We worked really hard all year and we ended up with, I think I’m right in saying, three ounces of hen food.
“It was an absolute disaster on the farming side but, I mean, luckily we’ve got other projects going on now. But the farming is very, very difficult – very, very difficult at the moment.”
He continued, claiming how ‘fortunate’ he was to have oher income streams, including his newspaper columns and his pub
Ella Scott
