Large scale Solar power could be the best option moving forward

Could the world be run on solar power?

It’s widely acknowledged that the vast majority of currently used fossil fuels are running out, so much so that some scientists predict that we will be bereft of these fuel sources inside a century.

Its time to look at other forms of power, everyone agrees on that. One of the most viable long term solutions to the forecast power shortfalls is the widespread implementation of Solar Power.

As a comparison , the Solar Energy that hits a square mile in a year is the energy equivalent of over 4 million barrels of oil.

To match current energy demands the amount of area required to be tuned over to solar PV  would be around 0.2% of the total earth land mass. Read the rest of this entry »

This isn’t just any solar pv array…. this is a Marks and Spencer solar pv array.

The retail giant have joined the growing numbers of UK based businesses investing in to their own future and the future of renewable energy. A massive 24,000 solar panels are planned to be mounted to the roof of  Marks and Spencer’s Warehouse in Castle Donington. Read the rest of this entry »

Rolling power cuts could be seen in the future as we struggle to meet energy demands

This week the National Grid issues warnings to UK residents that over the coming winter its capacity to deliver power to UK homes and businesses will be at a 7 year low as a large number of generation plants have been closed or are foretasted breakdowns.

The grid has released figures detailing that spare electricity capacity last year ran at an average of just 4%, in 2011 that margin was 17%. Since 2012, however, 15 power plants across the UK have been fully or partially closed, leaving a shortfall in the UK’s energy generation capacity.

Predictions estimate Read the rest of this entry »

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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Swedish Flat-pack giant Ikea started a partnership with Chinese thin-film solar manufacturer Hanergy to bring easy Solar PV to domestic properties across the UK. Following an initial trial period the scheme was rolled out to all 18 of the Nordic superstores UK locations and saw huge uptake. 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 »

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 »

The earth is full of clean renewable energy options available to the consumer, unfortunately in recent decades with the rise in usage of fossil fuels and more widespread use of cars and motor vehicles across the globe. Well now we are faced with decreasing supplies of oil and gas and everyone across the globe to turn their attention to renewable sources of energy to meet the requirements of modern life. This goes the same for governments, corporations and homeowners across the globe, and no one is seeing this demand more than the energy companies who supply power to the world. It’d widely acknowledged that now is the time to look at renewable energy sources more than ever. Let’s take a look at the “freebies”, readily available energy sources across the world from which we can harness power, namely, wind and sunshine. Read the rest of this entry »