Blogs

Ian Lucas, MP for Wrexham, explains how “catastrophic” solar policy has caused Christmas heartache for 615 of his constituents

The ongoing saga surrounding energy bills in the UK is finally set to come to a head when George Osborne delivers the Autumn Statement on 5 December .

Potential Induced Degradation (PID) is a topic that’s been around the PV industry for a while, but until fairly recently I had not been paying it that much attention. This changed for me at Solar Energy UK 2013 in Birmingham when a manufacturer giving a talk said they had seen evidence of PID reducing output in a particular system by 60% – yes 60%!

The UK has more than 4GW of PV projects in the pipeline but the majority is at the mercy of local planning authorities.

The Prime Minister’s pledge to “roll back green charges” put the whole green industry in a tailspin. Thankfully, despite Michael Fallon’s best efforts, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has confirmed that none of solar’s support mechanisms will be included in Cameron’s ‘green levies review’. Here’s a roundup of some of the best tweets as the industry was dragged through the latest twist and turns of the ‘solarcoaster’.

The news that Hinkley Point achieved a strike price of £92.50 per MWh, nearly four times the amount originally proposed, cannot but rankle with the British solar industry.

The strike price for Hinkley Point C nuclear power station announced on Monday was described by the government as a good deal for Britain. But as Seb Berry of Solarcentury and the Solar Trade Association argues, compared to technologies such as solar, it is anything but.

The political diving lines have been drawn; the rising cost of living will play a central role and energy bills are the focus. What does this mean for renewables?

Solar PV demand from the UK declined significantly during the third quarter of 2013, as the full impact of the Europe/China trade case impacted on module availability.

Brand spanking new MCS standards for solar thermal products and installers have just been released. Here’s a round up of the important changes they bring to our industry.