Blogs

Although deployment of solar has been traditionally slow in Ireland, Sean Markey argues that Lightsource’s recent leap into the Irish solar market could help kickstart a solar revolution.

Warnings of a capacity crunch this Winter have strengthened, not weakened, the importance of installing solar on commercial buildings, according to Hive Energy’s Tim Purbrick.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has caused what could be potentially the most active day in ground-mounted solar applications seen yet in the industry, directly as a result of its proposals to change the Renewable Obligation (RO) goalposts for the solar industry.

The proposed cuts to solar subsidies has attracted the ire of the renewables industry since they were unveiled by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) late last month, but stinging criticism has poured in from unexpected sources too.

The fragmented nature of the solar industry is making it easier for the government to divide and conquer the sector. Alex Fornal argues that giving solar one unified voice could pay dividends

The renewables industry has responded positively to a sustained period of policy stability but recent policy changes could jeopardise the solar sector’s ability to create jobs, argues David Hunt.

The immediate reaction following the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s 22 July 2015 proposal to change the goalposts for the UK solar industry was obviously one of despair, and what the impact on FY’17 forecasts for ground-mounted solar could be. However, that’s just one part of the story. The other relates to what is left, assuming most of the proposals will end up being rubber stamped by DECC.

In a normal world, if a market declined by an order of magnitude from one quarter to another, one would expect most of the industry participants to be looking for another career opportunity. But we are talking about the solar industry here, so normal benchmarks tend not to be in play too much.

If DECC’s proposals to draw a line under new RO applications from 22 July 2015 end up being written into policy, then potentially one of the hardest hit will be pure-play developers of solar farms.

It seems that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) *may* have learnt from its series of solar-related legal disputes. This time round, instead of taking immediate emergency action to revise subsidy rates the government has taken a rather more creative approach.