A council's decision to buy a giant solar farm 170 miles away in a bid to cut its carbon emissions has been dismissed as "nonsense."

The 94-acre facility in North Somerset remains in the "testing" phase, but aims to provide thousands of hours of green electricity to the national grid a year.

It was bought by Kent County Council (KCC) - the first solar farm purchase in its history - in a bid to greatly reduce carbon emissions by 2030 and is expected to be fully operational "in weeks".

Cllr Susan Carey (Con), cabinet member for environment, says the new scheme will make a "significant" impact to the KCC's energy use and costs, helping to reduce the its carbon footprint by 30% by 2030.

However, opposition county councillors have raised concerns over the "real" environmental benefits to Kent residents.

Liberal Democrat opposition leader Cllr Anthony Hook described the purchase as "outrageous" and a "nonsense".

He said: "Stick solar panels on the roof of a KCC building, not a field in Somerset."

KCC first announced the acquisition of the Bowerhouse II Solar Farm in Somerset, which has the capacity to hold 39,312 solar panels in April. The site is also likely to provide 22,000 megawatt hours of green electricity to the national grid each year.

LASER Energy managed the acquisition on the council's behalf using £14.4m from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.

The government grant has provided cash to various local authorities to fund green schemes.

When fully operational, the solar farm is expected to reduce 4,663 tonnes of carbon a year, amounting to around 30% of KCC’s net zero carbon reduction target on its own estate by 2030.

KCC's North Somerset site was "tested" over three days in August and provided 55% of KCC's energy requirements in the same month alone.

'It won't change power used by one family or business in the county'

At KCC's cabinet meeting in County Hall, Maidstone, last Thursday (Sep 30), Cllr Carey said the tests showed the scheme was "paying off".

She added: "When it is 100% in a few weeks' time, I think we can expect in the winter months it will be making a significant impact to our energy use, costs and carbon reduction.

"We have this project for the next 30 to 40 years. I am really pleased to see it paying off."

However the Liberal Democrats and Greens have questioned how the scheme will serve Kent residents.

Cllr Hook said: "The power it makes will all be sold to the national grid. There is no real environmental benefit for Kent.

"KCC claims it will help meet Kent's zero carbon target, but it is nonsense. It won't change power used by one family or business in the county."

Green Party leader Cllr Paul Stepto, who supported investing in green energy rather than fossil fuels, said he would like to see more solar schemes in Kent.

He said: "It is good to have solar farms, but this is going indirectly to Kent.

"Putting solar panels onto Kent buildings would be a good move."