DECC has published the weekly solar PV installation and capacity graph that the Minister of State for Climate Change, Greg Barker, showed to the EAC and ECC during Tuesday’s inquiry into the proposed cuts to the feed-in tariff.
The figures show that the number of solar PV installations completed from November 20–27 totalled 11,395 with 10,998 of those being <4kW systems.
The latest installation figure is down on last week’s by 839 installs. Last week saw 12,234 systems installed from November 13–20 – the highest number of installs completed over a consecutive seven-day period so far this year.
These figures indicate that the UK market has hit its peak because the numbers of installs have begun to drop as the December 12 cut-off date for higher feed-in tariff rates looms large.
Since the announcement of the cut to the FiT on October 31, the UK has seen 46,161 systems installed, totalling 134.22MW of capacity and accounting for 30.42% of all solar PV installs in 2011.
The statistics published by DECC show that before the announcement of the proposed FiT cut, install numbers had actually dropped by almost 2,000 from September to October.
The records also reveal that total solar PV capacity installed under the feed-in tariff scheme in the UK now stands at 499,617kW, a shade away from reaching a 500MW market.