Commercial & Residential Solar

Current uSwitch figures dictate that fuel poverty affects 6.3 million households in the UK. With almost 30,000 deaths blamed on low incomes and high energy bills, John Penny, Policy Advisor at the Chartered Institute of Housing, offered solutions to the audience at Solar Power UK in Birmingham today.

China Sunergy has signed a 50MW Memorandum of Understanding with a view to expand its UK presence. The MoU was inked just before the start of Solar Power UK 2012 which kicked off on October 2 and runs until October 4.

In a bid to encourage PV installers to take advantage of the growing BIPV market in the UK, PV manufacturer and glass specialist Romag has launched its new BIPV Partnership Programme at Solar Power 2012, which is being held this week in Birmingham, and will be rolling it out across the UK in the coming months.

SMA Solar will release its Smart Home system to the UK, which has already been successfully installed in Germany. The company claims that the Smart Home system increases self-consumption by approximately 30 per cent with “outstanding” efficiency in converting and storing electricity. The low-cost installation is straightforward thanks to a quick and easy wall mounting.

Waxman Energy will showcase its Black Panel range from global electronics giant LG, supplier of Phono Solar at Solar Power UK in Birmingham this week. Waxman enthuses that its product portfolio, which ranges across solar PV and solar thermal, will be of particular interest to architects, developers or homeowners looking to go eco-friendly.

A 240kWp rooftop PV system has officially switched on at King’s Cross railway station in London. In addition to being one of the most iconic solar projects in the UK, the £1.3 million project is also said to be one of the largest and most complex BIPV systems in the country.

So “what actually happens during G59 commissioning” is a question I was asked earlier this week. It came up, as we had been doing exactly that, deep in the bowels of Kings Cross Station.

Official statistics released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change show that the UK’s 1.38GW of installed solar capacity generated 0.5TWh of electricity in the second quarter of 2012.

Power-One will be introducing both its largest and smallest PV inverters to the UK market at this year’s Solar Power UK: the AURORA ULTRA and the AURORA MICRO.

Steve Wade, Managing Director of Herefordshire-based renewable specialist, Wind & Sun, recently presented a paper on a pioneering renewable off-grid energy system at the 2012 Symposium on Micro-grids in Evora, Portugal.