Image: Sungift.

Solar Power Portal has today launched a new survey in a bid to determine just how effective recent policy movements in the UK energy market could prove for domestic solar. 

Solar Power Portal has frequently surveyed the UK’s domestic installation market in order to gauge its confidence to deploy moving forward and, given the scale of regulatory change of late, we are keen to understand the sector’s current feelings. 

The survey itself is short, comprising just five questions and should take just a few minutes to complete.

It narrows in on two specific pieces of legislation, both the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) and the government’s net zero target. 

Last week the government confirmed that the SEG, a market-based replacement for the export tariff, will come into force from 1 January 2020 and secure payments for surplus power from residential and commercial installations. 

Meanwhile, the government’s decision to legislate for a net zero economy by 2050, in line with the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation, means that renewable electricity generation in the UK will need to ramp up significantly in the coming years. 

The CCC has spoke of the need for a four-fold increase in renewables, with solar and wind set to be the cheapest forms of generation by the mid-2020s. 

Therefore we are eager to survey UK installers and developers to see whether or not there is confidence in these two pieces of legislation to stimulate further deployment. 

“While the UK solar market effectively still exists in a policy vacuum, and some hurdles, least of all the baffling VAT decision, remain, both the SEG and net zero legislation can offer some hope for installers and developers alike. 

“UK solar professionals have become famed for their resilience and ingenuity, so we’re keen to see just how much confidence they have derived from recent policy moves, or if they’re even needed at all,” Liam Stoker, editor at Solar Power Portal, said. 

The survey is to remain open for two weeks from today, after which the results will be assessed and headline findings shared. It is entirely anonymous, so no business details will be shared. It can be found here