News

The first 82 local energy projects have today been awarded financial support from the £10 million Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF). Approximately 200 projects are expected to be named as fund recipients before the scheme closes to new applications on January 20.

Calor Gas’s investment in the green energy sector has recently helped the company achieve certification from the Carbon Trust as well as endorsement from the Energy Savings Trust. Calor’s green commitment has been further enhanced by the announcement of a partnership with Midlands-based energy efficiency company, Mark Group.

With just months to go before Government’s flagship Green Deal policy kicks off, Climate Change Minister Greg Barker has launched a partnership to ensure the UK has the skills required for an effective rollout of the scheme.

A new solar photovoltaic manufacturing plant in the North East is set to provide up to 60 new jobs on Tyneside. Production started this week at the £5 million-a-year manufacturing plant, which aims to provide high-specification photovoltaic modules to the whole European market.

Last week ended in a most disappointing fashion as the certainty the UK solar industry was promised never reared its much-anticipated head. After a long day filled with expectation, the Court of Appeal adjourned on Friday afternoon having moved nowhere at all.nowhere at all.

Derry Newman, CEO of Solarcentury, has announced his plans to retire from April this year. Newman joined Solarcentury in December 2006 and oversaw an unprecedented level of success at the company. Under Newman’s stewardship, Solarcentury appeared in the annual Sunday Times Tech Track 100 league tale of the fastest growing UK tech companies in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011.

A Shade Greener has created 129 new jobs in the Southern Bristol area after the opening of their Southern Head Office in Paulton, Bristol. The group, who claim to be the UK’s largest free solar panel installer, now employs over 600 people in the solar industry.

The Court of Appeal met at 9.30 this morning to decide the fate of the UK solar industry, gathering to make a decision on whether to grant the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) a hearing for its appeal against the High Court’s December ruling on UK solar feed-in tariffs.

Tomorrow the Court of Appeal will decide whether it will grant a hearing for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), which holds fast in its opinion that it was necessary to cut solar feed-in tariff rates by up to 50 percent with a cut off date of December 12, 2011. Although the findings of a hearing – if granted – won’t be heard until next week, Friday the 13th could hold great significance for the future of the UK solar market.

According to a report published today by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the UK has no hope of reaching its binding 2050 target for CO2 reductions without a serious shake-up of the way homes are heated. The publication, Heat: degrees of comfort, finds that even with the most modern gas boilers and state-of-the art insulation, we cannot continue to heat so many homes by natural gas and still achieve an 80 percent cut in emissions as laid down in the Climate Change Act 2008.