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 »

Technology giants are seeing a new area of competition with each other, sustainability.

California based household name, Apple, have made a switch to renewable energy. Currentlyall of their US data centres are run on clean energy. Their North Carolina data centre located in Maiden is currently supplied by a 400, 000 square metre solar array.

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environmental initiatives and the former head of the US Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), told Sky News why Apple had invested in the solar array. 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 »

New data released by the research firm IHS, details that up to 69% of the planned solar installs across 2014 and 2015 throughout Europe are planned to take place in the UK. Approximately 7 gigawatts of solar pv are planned to be installed across Europe of the coming 18 months. With that factored the UK can expect at least 4.8GW of solar photo voltaic power installed over the next 18 months. 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 »

Last Month Engineering and Technology giant Siemens announced their plans for large scale wind turbine production and installation facilities in the north of the UK. The 2 sites are the Green port Hull project which has been announced previously, and will cover service construction and assembly and the newly revealed plan for a new rotor blade manufacturing facility in Paull, East Riding.

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The whole world has to look to renewable energy sources for the future of their power supplies – fossils fuels have been depleted at an alarming rate over the last few decades, they are quickly disappearing from the face of the earth and they cannot be renewed but not to worry, there are an abundance of renewable energy sources available – renewable sources which will not run out.

The primary sources of renewable energy are;

Wind power – wind turbines can be used to generate electricity by harnessing the raw power of the wind, it won’t make the wind blow any less or any less frequently, the wind keeps on blowing no matter how much of the energy is utilized or effectively wasted.  Wind power is green, clean and renewable.

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Much of the industrialized world relies heavily on natural gas, coal and oil for their energy production – in short, we are extremely dependent upon fossil fuels. One very important thing to remember about fossil fuels is that they are not renewable – once they are used they are used up – gone, they are no more, they won’t come back in a hurry and as supplies dwindle the retrieval of fossil fuels can be very environmentally damaging as well as them becoming increasingly expensive.

There has to be another way – and there is . . .

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Solar water heating panels are a fabulous, low profile and definitely cost effective method of reducing your energy costs whilst still having plenty of hot water for your family’s needs. These systems basically utilize the heat of the sun (which is free by the way) to warm a reserve of water in order to provide a constant stream of hot water to your home.

Using a Solar water heating system to heat your water supply will;

• Give you hot water the whole year round, although your water may need a little additional help throughout the coldest winter months. Read the rest of this entry »