Recent studies by the in-house research team at Solar Media’s Market Intelligence team can now exclusively reveal that Solarcentury has become the first company to install more than 500MW of solar PV capacity within the UK.
While much of this growth has come in the past couple of years during the solar farm boom in the UK, Solarcentury is also the only major solar PV installer today that was around during the pre-FiT days before 2010.
Others entered the market during 2010 and 2011, and have seen strong growth in the past few years, but the number of installers active in both pre and post FiT/ROC subsidy phases is likely to be very few, in particular those having installed capacity levels above 100MW.
Current activities at Solar Media and Solar Power Portal are focused on identifying clearly the Top 20 EPCs in the UK at 31 March 2016, following the end of the 1.3ROC banding period. While we are still checking all the data, verified bottom-up from confirmed and completed sites through planning, it is clear right away that the number 1 EPC for solar farm builds in the UK will be Solarcentury.
Other positions are being confirmed over the next few weeks, and we will provide a summary of the output on Solar Power Portal during May.
Solarcentury is also the only company to have installed more than 500MW of solar farms in the UK, although we expect two other companies to exceed this level over the next 9 months.
Full details on all completed solar farms in the UK is available through subscription to our UK Ground Mount Report 4 – Completed Assets report, more details of which can be found here. Any EPCs wishing to cross-check their completed site list, as part of our pending Top 20 EPC feature in May can contact me directly at [email protected].
So far, the results are hinting towards a very different landscape for installers in the past 6-12 months for the ground-mount segment, and activity during the remainder of the 1.2ROC phase until 31 March 2017 shows clear signs of this new trend continuing.