subsidies

Large-scale solar deployment in the UK is set to re-ignite next year as the technology continues to beat all previous cost estimates and could be as cheap as £40 per megawatt hour by 2030, the Solar Trade Association has said.

Two solar installations with a combined capacity of 140kWp have been completed at the Victoria Gate shopping centre in Leeds, including a carport system installed atop the site’s multi-storey car-park.

Ofgem has identified a combined shortfall of over £60 million pounds in two funds underpinning the UK’s solar energy subsidy regimes, taking aim at late payments from energy suppliers.

In the latest from NextEnergy Capital, Abid Kazim discusses the shift to a decentralised energy system, how this will facilitate the deployment of rooftop solar and what investment opportunities distributed energy generation represents as we move to the electrification of transportation.

Solar power “should not be provided to the grid for free” according to energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry, potentially heralding a change of stance from the government as it plans the future of small scale renewables.

West Sussex County Council recently followed up Anesco’s completion of the UK’s first subsidy-free solar farm in September last year with its own, deploying 7.4MW alongside a battery to make the project viable. While some have argued the project offers little in discussions of the future solar landscape in the UK, local authority projects are being completed now and could bridge the gap in deployment until private investors get moving.

Krannich Solar is expecting “a mini boom” in the months leading up to the close of the feed-in tariff in March 2019, according to Phil Ellery who has returned to the company as commercial director.

As the tariff and potentially export payment regimes comes to an end, never before has it been more important to look at alternative means to ensure rooftop solar continues to play a part in national decarbonisation. However, international comparisons raised at an event yesterday demonstrate how more needs to be done to move the conversation on from tariffs to planning, with the government far from off the hook.

The UK’s second subsidy-free solar farm, and the first by a local authority using battery storage, has been completed by West Sussex County Council in a project that ticked “every box” and will generate significant income over the next 25 years.

Solar Power Portal has today published digital versions of all three copies of last week’s Solar & Storage Today daily newspapers.