Blogs

Following an MCS meeting on Monday, the plan is to finalise and issue the draft of guide by Monday (3rd October).

I’m not ashamed to admit that when it comes to football: I’m a bit of a girl. I don’t fully understand the off-side rule, I can’t reel off last weekend’s results and I spend most of my spectating hoping…

The focus of attention over the next few weeks will be on the feed-in tariffs review, particularly once the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) finally publishes the consultation paper.  The belief in the industry, of course, is that the rates for solar PV will be reduced. How much is anyone’s guess, but 25 % seems a popular stab at it.

August wasn’t a particularly good month for some solar PV customers and installers … as two MCS listed module manufacturers headed into bankruptcy. Evergreen Solar filed for bankruptcy earlier in the month and Solyndra announced it had suspended operations and planned to file for bankruptcy as the month closed.

Trade shows and site visits aside, I don’t often get the opportunity to unshackle myself from my desk and get up-close and personal with the subject of my daily musings, so, when I was offered the chance to learn how to install actual solar panels on a real-life roof, I grabbed it with both hands. Making our way to Trade Skills 4U’s Crawley-based head office, Solar Power Portal’s latest intern, Sam Pilgrim and I donned our hard hats and high visibility jackets…

Everyone engaged in property matters will have come across the installation of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, in order to reduce electricity consumption from the grid and to take advantage of Government’s feed- in tariff (FiT) scheme. Social landlords and local authorities are making moves to undertake feasibilities and to commission installations, some with a wary eye on Government’s review of the FiT tariffs in April 2012. A key issue for their feasibility thinking is whether to self-fund installations or to do so via a third party, also known as the ‘rent-a-roof’ option.

Ever since the first mention of the Fast Track Feed-in Tariff Review the question of just how many projects will beat the August 1 cut-off has been a burning one. As it turns out, Ofgem’s figures on this won’t be published for a while, so I thought I’d document exactly who has installed what and where in order to showcase…

We don’t drill and bolt within Sundog Energy, however I have been asked about this a number of times recently.

I am getting quite a few folks asking for a copy of the draft … the story is that we are nearly there but a couple of sections remain that haven’t been looked at yet.

The UK solar industry is booming and is set to expand even more in the coming years. With the cost of energy continuing to rise, domestic and commercial users are looking at alternative forms of savings, generating energy themselves, and with Government incentives enabling owners to earn money by feeding their electricity back into the national grid, renewable energy technologies are proving to be a popular choice.