The latest solar installation figures published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) reveal that weekly installations have broken the 8MW barrier for the first time in 2013.

The week ending 14 April saw a total of 2,013 ≤50kWp installs registered on the central database – representing 8.3MW of capacity. The level of capacity installed is 25% larger than last week’s figures with 340 more installations.

Installations in the 0-4kWp band continue to demand the deployment figures with 1,894 systems registered. The 4-10kW and 10-50kW continue to show incremental growth with 50 and 69 installations respectively.

The figures show that since April last year, the UK solar industry has installed 445MW of ≤50kW scale solar. However, large-scale solar developments continue to represent the vast majority of solar capacity installed in the UK. The energy and climate change minister, Greg Barker, took to twitter to illustrate just how fast the large-scale solar market has grown this year, stating:

Commenting on the UK's performance, Finlay Colville, vice president of NPD Solarbuzz, said: “The UK is currently one of the hottest markets in Europe, if not globally, during Q1’13. The ROCs have enabled strong ground-mount demand, coupled with large commercial rooftop installs accessing the new rooftop ROC incentives.”

The minister's tweet validates Colville's recent blog for Solar Power Portal which predicted that the UK installed more than 0.5GW of PV in Q1,2013.

 

Greg Barker MP launching the new edition of the MCS Solar PV Guide.

1. Cumulative UK PV demand.

Colville added: “The graphic shown above is direct confirmation of DECC’s announcement today that installs had exceeded the 2.5GW level at the end of last quarter. Continued ROC-based deployment is forecast to remain strong during the next quarter also.”

 

The Department of Energy and Climate Change’s latest weekly solar statistics can be viewed here.