As the saying goes, never waste a good crisis. The recent spike in oil prices has meant renewable energy has come back into many conversations and what options are available for farms and rural households to lower fuel bills.

As Stephen Robb reports in this week’s Renewables Focus feature, our reliance on volatile fossil energy markets no longer guarantees stable, affordable energy security.

Giving farmers the tools they need to generate their own energy should be a key goal of this Government, but the opposite has been true so far.

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In this week’s feature, Stephen visits farmers who have successfully installed solar PV on their farms, examines the implications of solar farms on direct payments and explores whether there are any real alternatives to diesel-powered tractors.