investment

Finlay Colville, head of market research at Solar Media, provides an early forecast for what next year holds in store for UK solar as post-subsidy economics and a surging project pipeline come to the fore.

The Conservative Party manifesto, launched on Sunday, fails to lay out any policies for solar power or energy storage, despite the party’s net zero ambitions.

The Labour Party today launched its manifesto, cementing it’s plans to expand renewables and nationalise the energy sector.

The Octopus Group will float a new renewables fund, the Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust, on the London Stock Exchange.

The UK is back into seventh position in the most recent EY’s Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI), released yesterday (19 November).

The Green Party has launched its manifesto, including a pledge to invest £12 billion a year into renewables and to fit one million solar panels on homes per year.

While a lot of uncertainty still remains with regards to renewables after Brexit, the growth of subsidy free solar, along with net zero and other targets enshrined in UK law, and the World Trade Organisations (WTO) arrangements should reassure the solar industry. But concerns over imports, skilled staff and growing costs remain.

Flexibility aggregator Limejump has signed a short-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Bluefield Solar Income Fund. Limejump will manage the power sale for four solar farms owned by Bluefield, using its Virtual Power Platform (VPP).

ScottishPower’s renewables arm has applied to build a utility-scale solar-plus-storage farm in Scotland, which is to be backed by a private wire connection with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund has received a £9.5 million boost for two storage projects recently awarded contracts in the DS3 flexibility market.