Solar Media Staff

Centrosolar UK has introduced its ‘54-cell Excellent’ module to the UK solar market. From April this year UK customers will be able to take advantage of solar panels containing four more cells than the former 50-cell panels of the ‘S-Class Excellent’ series.

Engineering Recommendation G83 – Recommendations for the Connection of small-scale embedded generators (up to 16A per phase) in parallel with public Low-voltage distribution networks. ER G83 is about to be reviewed and there is an opportunity for the solar PV industry to feed in their comments to this process. I will be sitting on the review committee – and will feed in comments from both Sundog Energy and also the wider PV industry as a REA-STA representative.

With all of the latest policy adjustments, feed-in tariffs reviews and threatened cuts causing such a huge amount of uncertainty in the UK, it is no wonder that IMS Research is now questioning the viability of the country’s solar industry. By proposing to reduce the tariff levels for PV systems over 50kW, the research company is concerned about the success of the UK’s solar future.

Regen SW’s annual renewable energy report has revealed a rapid growth in the number renewable electricity projects in the south west of the UK over the past year. The majority of these installations were dominated by domestic solar photovoltaic installations. However, the report also highlights that Government’s recent policy reviews have the potential to put a stop to this growth.

Well actually we are not at this stage – in fact we are a long way from this stage, but if the feed in tariff gets broken then this is what we face.

Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham has received planning permission for what will be one of the largest solar photovoltaic roofs in the UK. Rotherham-based WS Systems, which rents land and roof space in order to install solar power, will lead the project.

Molecular Solar, the spin-out of Warwick University, is working with Imperial College London and several other firms to develop prototype high-efficiency multi-junction organic solar cells. In order to help with the commercialization of this next generation technology the consortium as received a total of £1.4 million in funding from the Technology Strategy Board and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

One aspect of the fast-track feed-in tariff review that has been niggling away at me for weeks is Government’s constant justification that cuts were needed to stop “large-scale solar farms soaking up the cash,” when rooftop systems were also taking the hit. In fact, as revealed today, the Government has had to cancel its own plans as a result of this ridiculous banding.

An interesting development in the feed-in tariff fiasco has been uncovered by Business Green, which has exposed the Government’s silent scrapping of its own solar PV projects. According to the article project stakeholders have cancelled plans thanks to the recent policy u-turn.

According to new research conducted by The Pew Charitable Trusts, clean energy investment dropped by a shocking 70% in the UK last year, placing us in unlucky position number 13. This means the UK has dropped eight places under the coalition Government, as Labour brought us up to fifth…