Rochdale Borough Council have recently broken ground on what is to be the UK’s first publicly owned commercial solar farm. In its quest to become the UK’s most environmentally green local authority, the Council have undertaken a project to develop a sector of waste ground into a 250 kWp commercial solar plant.
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Following the cabinet reshuffle, the UK’s Solar champion in government, Greg Barker replaced new Secretary of State for Energy, Matt Hancock. Mr Hancock reaffirmed his faith in the UK’s solar potential several times in a Parliament debate on renewable energy this week, the new secretary was keen to point out how Solar PV was one of the largest potentials in the UK renewables race Read the rest of this entry »

Minister for climate change, Greg Barker, has announced plans to boost the growing uptake in commercial solar installations in the UK. Speaking to representatives at the British Photovoltaic Association’s Commercial and Domestic Rooftop Solar recently in the capital, Mr Barker echoed his long repeated statements on the importance of Solar Power to the UK and the governments desire to continually increase uptake of commercial solar power for UK roofspace. Read the rest of this entry »

members of the UK public are firmly behind renewable energy

The UK public has continued to show support for renewable energy in a series of surveys conducted across the UK. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change 80% of those who responded to the survey stated that they were in support of electricity, heat and fuel to come from renewable sources. In addition to this nearly 2 thirds of UK inhabitants said they would be happy to see a large scale renewable energy development in their area.

The purpose of this questionnaire was to ascertain what the major challenges to the UK are in today’s climate including inflation, energy supply and taxation among others. Among the topics of importance those relating to energy have jumped several places to the forefront of concerns among UK residents. 85% of those surveyed stated that they had considerable concern for future increases in energy costs. However, this is could be down to the increased profile of energy bills in the recent months as many political parties have been using them as an emotional point with voters. Read the rest of this entry »

Hot on the heels of the UKs freshly launched (and pioneering for Europe) Solar Strategy, the UK government granted approval for 8 renewable energy projects in the UK for 2014. These are the first set of projects to be awarded under the government’s energy market reforms. Read the rest of this entry »

MCS have announced recently that the current Feed in Tariff (FIT) rates for all non PV technology types are to remain at the same level until 31st March 2014.

It has also now been confirmed that the 15.44p / kWh rate, for eligible PV installations with a total installed capacity of 4kW or under, will apply to installations with an eligibility date on or after 1st November 2012 and before 1st July 2013.

These announcements follows Ofgem’s publication of the latest tariff tables and looks set to bring a very welcome stability to the UK renewables market this year. Read the rest of this entry »

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has generated £22,000 from solar installations across police buildings at Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham, Gravesend, Deptford, Bromley and Sutton.

The payments were made under the feed-in tariff scheme (FIT) for electricity generated by these installations from December 2011 to September 2012.

Neil Grange, Head of Carbon Management for the Met, said: “We are always looking at ways to become more sustainable and this scheme has the added bonus that we are able to use our roof space and generate an income from Solar energy.

“The Met is a huge organisation and has a duty to reduce its carbon footprint as much as possible.  We are working on a range of projects to that end.”

All FIT eligible Solar PV installations registered after March 2012 are guaranteed the contracted feed in tariff for 20 years.

Ofgem has confirmed the feed-in tariff (FiT) rates for Solar photovoltaic technology beginning February 1, 2013. The rates will remain the same

The new FiT rates, as of 1 February, 2013, will be as follows:

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