Ever since the first mention of the Fast Track Feed-in Tariff Review the question of just how many projects will beat the August 1 cut-off has been a burning one. As it turns out, Ofgem’s figures on this won’t be published for a while, so I thought I’d document exactly who has installed what and where in order to showcase…
I think it is fair to say that the UK solar industry has spent the past 12 months screaming out to a Government which has not been listening. This has been a frustrating experience, made all the…
Life after the feed-in tariff review suddenly became a bit clearer yesterday as politicians, industry players and other supporters met at the House of Commons to discuss the future of solar technology in the UK.
The UK solar industry’s worst fears have today been realised as Government ploughs ahead with its proposed feed-in tariff cuts. Paying absolutely no attention to industry’s kicking and screaming, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has kept to its original plan and imposed ridiculously reduced rates of…
Following on from last week’s Green Investment Bank announcement, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has today published an array of papers designed to summarise the intricacies of, and reassure UK homeowners about, the Green Deal. After fears that the ‘greenest Government…
Yesterday afternoon I was lucky enough to be part of a one-off solar power-themed school assembly in Surrey with special guests Rio Ferdinand, Gary Lineker, Dale Winton, Simon Cowell, Graham Norton, Jimmy Carr and David Attenborough…
According to research conducted by renewable energy website YouGen, there’s a lot of confusion amongst UK residents about the export of solar electricity to the national grid. Reportedly, customers who have installed solar panels are unsure about how the export payments work, and so-called help lines are just making matters worse.
As we all try and pick ourselves back up from recent knockbacks in the UK’s renewable energy sector, it’s worrying to find out that we missed our renewable energy target for 2010 by 3.5%. As a result, the levels of confidence we have in reaching the much larger, more daunting target set for 2020 are plummeting by the second.
One aspect of the fast-track feed-in tariff review that has been niggling away at me for weeks is Government’s constant justification that cuts were needed to stop “large-scale solar farms soaking up the cash,” when rooftop systems were also taking the hit. In fact, as revealed today, the Government has had to cancel its own plans as a result of this ridiculous banding.
Meeting today with the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Head of the Feed-in Tariff Review, Rachel Solomon Williams, I was able to dig out a few exclusives. Speaking out in defence against the review, Rachel faced a lot of difficult questions in response to the industry’s anger at the recent policy u-turn.
