The latest solar installation figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show that solar installs for the week ending July 8 have dropped by 36.4 percent compared to the week before.
The slow down in installation rates bucks the recent trend that had seen installation rates grow steadily week-on-week since the tariff rate dropped to 21p in April. It is hard to pinpoint the reason behind the slowdown but the recent inclement weather in the UK may have had an effect.
The 2,183 installations recorded account for 9.6MW of capacity, taking the overall installed capacity to 1.168GW. However the department notes that: “Revisions have been made to the volumes recorded in previous weeks as a result of additional installations being registered on the MCS database. The latest numbers are also likely to be revised upwards, as has been the case in previous weeks.”
If installation rates stay broadly inline with recent trends than it appears that installations in the 0-10kWp category will exceed 100MW by August – meaning that the FiT rate will experience a degression of 3.5 percent.
Installations in the 10-50kWp range seem unlikely to incur any degressions as the total capacity installed since May appears to remain less than 50MW.