Gareth Simkins, senior communications adviser for Solar Energy UK, reflects on the past year’s progress in the solar sector.
It’s fair to say that the good times are back again for the solar industry. Expectations are that more capacity will have been added this year than any other since the end of subsidies – and the policy wins have been tremendous.
As secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Ed Miliband has been a powerful voice for the sector. Only weeks after the election he spoke of a “solar rooftop revolution” and lambasted nonsensical claims about solar farms.
“Credible external estimates suggest that ground-mounted solar used just 0.1% of our land in 2022. The biggest threat to nature and food security and to our rural communities is not solar panels or onshore wind; it is the climate crisis, which threatens our best farmland, food production and the livelihoods of farmers. The Government will proceed not on the basis of myth and false information, but on evidence,” he told the Commons.
We also have the National Farmers Union on our side, unabashedly. Its president Tom Bradshaw condemned “sensationalist” claims about food security this summer, telling Politico that, “it’s a small amount of land which is being taken out of production.”
Miliband swiftly approved a shade under two gigawatts of nationally significant solar generation capacity: Gate Burton (500MW) in Lincolnshire, Sunnica (500MW) on the Suffolk/Cambridgeshire border, Mallard Pass (350MW) in Lincolnshire and Rutland and latterly the 600MW Cottam project, straddling Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. Together, they make up the bulk of the 3.1GW handed planning permission this year, up to the end of October.
His positive attitude to PV was also reflected in becoming co-chair of the Solar Taskforce, the first time that it had leadership at secretary of state level.
But even before the election, under an often less enthusiastic administration, there was much to celebrate. Three Government departments revealed that the energy efficiency of 350,000 listed homes and 2.5m in conservation areas could be bolstered by further extending permitted development rules for solar. Furthermore, VAT was finally struck off from retrofitted residential battery energy storage systems, after a long campaign by Solar Energy UK.
Permitted development rights were extended to almost all rooftop solar installations in Scotland. This was previously limited to systems of 50 kilowatts or less. And in Wales, from November solar farms under 50MW no longer require direct ministerial approval, being handed over Planning and Environment Decisions Wales for a decision instead.
Away from the tumult of policymaking, a huge 31MW rooftop project was announced at the Port of Liverpool – five times larger than the current record holder and four times larger than the average solar farm. The project involves Solar Energy UK members EMTEC, FES and Absolute Solar.
As several surveys have demonstrated, one of the public’s biggest concerns is about the biodiversity impact of solar farms. So it was delightful to see overwhelming evidence of how they can benefit nature, in the form of Solar Energy UK’s second Solar Habitat report.
In parallel work, we published a series of factsheets to dispel common misconceptions about solar farms, particularly on food security. We also opened our case study library, showcasing the best of the UK’s solar and energy storage sectors to the public and media. Among them is the UK’s first fully solar-powered park-and-ride site.
UK election brought solar to power
Aside from propelling Labour to power, the general election brought one of our own to the House of Commons. Ed Morello, formerly managing director and commercial director of SEUK members Powen and Zestec, respectively, became Liberal Democrat MP for West Dorset.
The following day, SEUK Chief Executive Chris Hewett said: “We are committed to helping the new Government’s national mission to deliver clean power by 2030. Labour’s first year in power is going to be a critical period for the solar and energy storage sectors – essential for future energy security, lowering energy bills and addressing the climate emergency. We have every confidence that the new Government will demonstrate a more positive attitude towards the industry and so bolster investor confidence.”
A minor downside was that the election put back the publication of the Solar Roadmap. Close to being finished before it was called, the report had to be both strengthened and aligned with Labour’s extensive revision of energy policy more broadly. It is expected early in the new year.
As a further indication of confidence in renewables, the new Government raised the Contracts for Difference budget by more than half for its sixth allocation round. ‘Pot1’, which backs established technologies such as solar farms, went from £120m to £185m (in 2011/12 prices). The strike price for solar power was also increased to £50.07/MWh, again in 2011/12 terms – reflecting the impact of inflation but still lower than any other technology.
The subsequent auction delivered record-breaking results, with 93 solar farms totalling 3,288MW securing support.
Following the summer break, the Solar Taskforce was re-activated, with the goal of aligning the forthcoming Solar Roadmap with Labour’s more ambitious goals. We look forward to its publication early in the new year.
The latter part of 2024 was packed full of good news, firstly with the revision of the National Planning Policy Framework. The main aspects were the removing the need to consider the impact of taking agricultural land out of production – used by some planning authorities as a pretext to reject applications for solar farms – and to raise the threshold for nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) from 50MW to 100MW. That should encourage developers to put forward projects within that range – none had been due to the extra costs of the NSIP framework.
What could be described as the year’s crowning glory was the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. Although immediate reactions were negative, a close inspection of footnotes and accompanying material revealed that the industry has largely got what it wanted, though concerns about regional distribution remain.
The headline goal of 45 – 47GW by 2030 is not an overall cap, referring instead to generation that is not behind the meter. It also identifies a further nine gigawatts of potential for rooftop PV, bringing the total to 54-57GW – close to the 60-GW Solar Energy UK considers to be deliverable.
Turning to the small-scale market, there have been almost 180,000 installations registered by MCS so far this year – close to the heights of the FiTs (Feed in Tariffs) era. Although a shade less than the 198,362 of last year, that number was related to both pent-up demand after Covid-related supply chain issues and increased demand for upgrades due to the energy price crisis. Signs are that it will grow next year, resulting from newbuild homes being fitted with PV in response to tightened Building Regulations. The impacts of the Future Homes Standard, whatever they will be exactly, are far down the road.
But I cannot let the ongoing struggles that the industry is having with network connections go unmentioned. As one example, we have seen the DNOs bringing forward connection dates under the Technical Limits programme – but on the condition that output is curtailed. In some cases, this would mean that no power could be exported whatsoever – making an earlier connection date meaningless.
“You couldn’t make it up. The idea of offering a grid connection that you can’t use and calling that some sort of success is absurd,” said Solar Energy UK Chief Executive Chris Hewett. He explained the situation to the Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee back in February.
It’s also fair to say that we had some back-room struggles in response to the NESO’s scenarios and how they would affect the Clean Power Plan, as well as a whole raft of changes to the way connections will be allocated and charged for. Our concerns were largely addressed before its publication, but there are still a lot of details to be worked through and not all projects will survive this process unscathed.
Furthermore, the right-wing press has been relentless in exploring every angle it can to undermine our industry. Even the announcement of the largest ever power purchase agreement was greeted with dismay – as it would not be powering homes as the 373MW Cleve Hill project was supposedly going to do. That it would be driving expensive natural gas off the grid went unmentioned.
Since the election, shadow energy secretary Clare Coutinho and the Reform party have also been vocal against solar farms, often using questionable facts and figures.
Nevertheless, the future is positive. The future is solar.
