News

Ministry of Defence (MoD) takes advantage of renewable obligation policy just before Whitehall scrapped it with UK’s largest solar farm development – and it could be expanded.  

Fruit farm Place UK has sought to trim its “significantly” increasing energy bills by installing a 200kWp ground-mount solar array at its 900-acre farm.

Nominations for 2015’s Solar Power Portal Awards are currently open. Returning for its third year, the Solar Power Portal Awards will take place on 13 October, the first evening of the sixth Solar Energy UK exhibition in Birmingham.

Solar PV cleaning specialist, Clean Solar Solutions has signed a two-year contract with inverter manufacturer, SMA for the annual cleaning of 110,000 solar panels on a site near Wellingborough.

Kent-based solar developer, Countryside Renewables has won planning permission for a 5MW solar farm in Lincolnshire.

Construction of a 40MW solar farm has been completed at the site of a new MOD training facility at RAF Lyneham, becoming the first project to form part of the government’s project to install 1GW of solar on government land.

A lack of clarity from Ofgem over specifics of the government’s split-ownership commercial and community scheme has not dissuaded developers from pursuing the “difficult” process, says RegenSW chief executive Merlin Hyman.

The UK is expected to remain the largest solar PV growth market in Europe through 2016, despite the end of the ROC system in April this year, which fuelled a utility-scale ground mount rush over the last year, pushing the UK to exceed 2GW installed in 2014.

Former energy secretary and chairman of the London Sustainable Development Commission, Greg Barker, has told the industry that the commission has solar is in the “middle of its gunsights” and is looking to install the technology in the capital “with greater ambition and greater scale”.

Property developer Cross Keys Homes has hailed its £16.5 million rooftop solar scheme a success after installing solar systems on social housing roofs in Peterborough.