SolarPowerPortal: “A letter to Prime Minister, David Cameron urging him to support Britain’s thriving solar industry has been signed by more than 150 businesses.”
“Signatories include Ikea, Good Energy, Loughborough University and Ecotrcity, with small companies directly involved in the solar PV industry representing the majority of supporters.
The letter was timed to coincide with the closing of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) consultation on proposals to remove renewable obligation support for solar farms over 5MW, described as a “kick in the teeth” to the sector.
….Paul Barwell, chief executive of the Solar Trade Association explained: “Solar is a home-grown solution to Britain’s energy crisis. If the government provides a stable policy environment solar will soon be subsidy free. But the government is now proposing to tilt the playing field against large-scale solar, while not taking sufficient action to unlock commercial rooftop solar – that is unacceptable.”
“We urge DECC not to close the Renewables Obligation to large-scale solar and to rethink proposals on feed-in tariffs to allow a meaningful rooftop market which their own Solar PV Strategy recognises has such tremendous potential.”
Barwell concluded: “So serious are the implications of these consultations for the British solar industry that we are asking the Prime Minister to intervene. We only need one more push, one more period of policy stability to be able to compete with fossil fuels without support. That is the global race the PM needs to win for the UK economy and the climate.”
Jeremy Leggett, chair of SolarAid and non-executive chairman of SolarCentury added: “Despite all of the incredible achievements of the UK solar industry since 2010, it’s still very clear that the Whitehall mindset has yet to catch up. Too much of the wording in the current solar consultation has the whiff of Groundhog Day about it. It’s time that the government woke up to the fact that, with stable support, jobs rich UK solar will be cheaper than onshore wind during the next Parliament, opening up immense opportunities for UK PLC and driving down the costs of delivering the 2020 renewable energy target in the process.
“Far from slamming the brakes on large-scale solar, the Prime Minister should be hailing it as one of Britain’s renewable energy success stories and getting behind it. Instead he prefers to push fracking, even in National Parks.”
The STA claims that DECC’s entire reason for revising support for large-scale solar is unfounded. The association calculates that solar farms only account for 5% of RO expenditure, and therefore rejects the claim that solar farm deployment is threatening the levy control framework (LCF).
In addition, the STA is extremely critical of the government’s apparent push to promote the deployment of commercial rooftop solar, labelling the outlined proposals as “wide of the mark”. As a result, the STA is asking government to issue another consultation to ‘properly address’ the barriers to rooftop solar deployment.
The letter will be delivered to 10 Downing Street today at midday today.”
Telegraph: “Government attempts to curb the spread of solar farms by ending a lucrative subsidy scheme will not succeed because a replacement payment system is actually more attractive, an energy boss has claimed.”
“Ministers announced in May that they would cut off subsidies for large solar farms under the so-called Renewable Obligation (RO) from March 2015, two years earlier than planned, after admitting the generous payments had led to far more farms being built than expected.
Greg Barker, the energy minister, vowed solar would not become “the new onshore wind” and that solar panels construction would now focus on factory roofs instead of the countryside.
The solar farm industry has complained the change will indeed curtail development, claiming that a complicated replacement system of green energy subsidies, called Contracts for Difference (CfDs), “doesn’t work for solar”. Hundreds of proposed new projects could be scrapped if they cannot ensure they are up and running by March, companies claim.
But now one major solar farm builder has broken ranks, telling theTelegraph the changes could make no difference to the number of new farms and that the new subsidy system is actually more attractive.
Robert Goss, managing director of Conergy, said: “It isn’t at all clear that changing the incentives will actually reduce the number of solar farms being built.”
He said that investors were simply speeding up some projects to complete them under the existing subsidy scheme, and would then build a new wave of projects under the replacement system.
“The CfDs will see a new phase of development, and will be more attractive than the [old scheme] as they offer a fixed price. Investors love that certainty,” he said.
Conergy is sufficiently unfazed by the change that it has just bought a series of planned solar farm projects, including some that will be affected by the subsidy cut and are not yet in the planning system. It now plans to spend £200m building them, following the deal announced this weekend.
….Paul Barwell, chief executive of the Solar Trade Association, the industry body, insisted that if the Government did not revise its plans it would “curtail the market really quite dramatically for large-scale solar”.
He forecast that “many of the developers will end up going out of businesses” because they would be unable to secure subsidies under the new system.
He said there were now estimated to be between 1.5GW and 1.9GW of the large-scale solar farms – those bigger than 25 acres – up and running. DECC data suggests this could equate to between 100 and 200 solar farms.
Mr Barwell said another 450MW was under construction and that ministers had told him they expected another 1.2GW to be built under the existing scheme. But he said the industry believed just 20pc of those projects would now actually get built, as a result of the changes.
Projects were already being scrapped because financial backers would not take a risk on them completing in time, he said.
Juliet Davenport, chief executive of energy supplier and solar farm developer Good Energy, said that six of its proposed solar farms would be at risk as a result of the changes and that “hundreds” could be at risk across the industry.
Jeremy Leggett, founder of Solar Century, said the changes felt like “groundhog day”. He said it was impossible for all projects that were planned for the old scheme to be rushed through by March and that National Audit Office analysis of the amount of funding available under the new subsidy scheme implied “a large cut in large-scale solar deployment in 2015/16”.
Good Energy, Solar Century and the Solar Trade Association all declined to identify any of the projects at risk from the changes.”
STA press release: Over 150 businesses tell Cameron: back British solar industry / Prime Minister urged to give solar power one more push for zero-subsidy / Stronger action on mid/large solar rooftop market needed
A coalition of over 150 businesses from the solar industry and beyond have come together to warn David Cameron of the threat to Britain’s thriving solar industry.
A letter (full text below) to Downing Street from a wide coalition of both big and small businesses including household names such as IKEA has asked the Prime Minister to back the UK solar industry. Signatories include Triodos Bank, Ecotricity, KYOCERA, Interface, Good Energy and the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology at Loughborough University.
The letter was signed by a host of small businesses involved in solar, showing how the industry is made up of over 2,000 small and medium sized businesses who support 16,000 jobs – in stark contrast to the Big 6 utilities.
The letter comes on the day the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) closes its consultation [1] on proposed changes to support for solar power. The proposals are already having a damaging effect on parts of the solar industry.
The letter highlights the critical importance of commercial and industrial roofs, as well as solar farms, in delivering low-cost solar. It urges the PM to secure the UK industry with an eye on the £78billion per annum global solar market anticipated in 2020.
The signatories underline the very positive benefits that solar parity will deliver for UK businesses including improving international competitiveness, lower energy price inflation and improved electricity sector competition.
Despite the vision set out in DECC’s own Solar PV Strategy [2] of solar booming across large roofs, the Solar Trade Association, who organised the letter, say that the current policy framework is not enabling this to happen. The STA also argues that the DECC consultation which closes today on Feed-In Tariffs [3], a support scheme essential to the success of roof-top schemes, doesn’t address the policy failure on mid-large solar roofs.
Commenting on the letter, Solar Trade Association Chief Executive Paul Barwell commented:
“Solar is a home-grown solution to Britain’s energy crisis. If the Government provides a stable policy environment solar will soon be subsidy free. But the Government is now proposing to tilt the playing field against large-scale solar, while not taking sufficient action to unlock commercial rooftop solar – that is unacceptable.”
“We urge DECC not to close the Renewables Obligation to large-scale solar and to rethink proposals on Feed in Tariffs to allow a meaningful rooftop market which their own Solar PV Strategy recognises has such tremendous potential.”
“The level of policy uncertainty risks derailing the extraordinary progress the large-scale industry has made in delivering jobs and reducing technology costs in the last few years. It is also putting the UK’s position in the booming global solar market at risk.”
“So serious are the implications of these consultations for the British solar industry that we are asking the Prime Minister to intervene. We only need one more push, one more period of policy stability to be able to compete with fossil fuels without support. That is the global race the PM needs to win for the UK economy and the climate.”
Jeremy Leggett, who is Chair of SolarAid and Non-executive Chairman of SolarCentury and who will also be handing the letter over to Downing Street on behalf of the signatories said:
“Despite all of the incredible achievements of the UK solar industry since 2010, it’s still very clear that the Whitehall mindset has yet to catch up.”
“Too much of the wording in the current solar consultation has the whiff of Groundhog Day about it. It’s time that the government woke up to the fact that, with stable support, jobs rich UK solar will be cheaper than onshore wind during the next Parliament, opening up immense opportunities for UK PLC and driving down the costs of delivering the 2020 renewable energy target in the process.”
“Far from slamming the brakes on large-scale solar, the Prime Minister should be hailing it as one of Britain’s renewable energy success stories and getting behind it. Instead he prefers to push fracking, even in National Parks.”
The two DECC consultations focus on controlling spending for large-scale PV within the Renewables Obligation and ‘promoting the deployment of midscale building-mounted solar PV’ under the FIT.
However the Solar Trade Association says that DECC’s claims that large-scale solar is a threat to the Renewables Obligation budget are ill-founded given solar currently accounts for just 5% of Renewables Obligation expenditure. The NAO has recently criticized [4] DECC for awarding 58% of the entire 2020 renewables budget to just 7 projects (6 of which are more expensive than solar power). In addition DECC’s proposals to ‘promote’ the deployment of rooftop solar under FITs are wide off the mark on the essential changes necessary to enable the take-off of roof-top solar. The STA is urging DECC to produce a new consultation that properly addresses the barriers to roof-top solar deployment.
The letter is being handed over to Downing Street at 12noon today (Monday 7 July).ENDS
[1] DECC, Consultation on changes to financial support for solar PV, published 13 May 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-changes-to-financial-support-for-solar-pv
[2] DECC, Solar PV Strategy, published 14 April 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-solar-pv-strategy-part-1-roadmap-to-a-brighter-future
[3] DECC, Consultation on changes to financial support for solar PV, published 13 May 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-changes-to-financial-support-for-solar-pv
[4] http://www.nao.org.uk/report/early-contracts-for-renewable-electricity/
FULL TEXT OF LETTER etc
“Signatories include Ikea, Good Energy, Loughborough University and Ecotrcity, with small companies directly involved in the solar PV industry representing the majority of supporters.
The letter was timed to coincide with the closing of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) consultation on proposals to remove renewable obligation support for solar farms over 5MW, described as a “kick in the teeth” to the sector.
….Paul Barwell, chief executive of the Solar Trade Association explained: “Solar is a home-grown solution to Britain’s energy crisis. If the government provides a stable policy environment solar will soon be subsidy free. But the government is now proposing to tilt the playing field against large-scale solar, while not taking sufficient action to unlock commercial rooftop solar – that is unacceptable.”
“We urge DECC not to close the Renewables Obligation to large-scale solar and to rethink proposals on feed-in tariffs to allow a meaningful rooftop market which their own Solar PV Strategy recognises has such tremendous potential.”
Barwell concluded: “So serious are the implications of these consultations for the British solar industry that we are asking the Prime Minister to intervene. We only need one more push, one more period of policy stability to be able to compete with fossil fuels without support. That is the global race the PM needs to win for the UK economy and the climate.”
Jeremy Leggett, chair of SolarAid and non-executive chairman of SolarCentury added: “Despite all of the incredible achievements of the UK solar industry since 2010, it’s still very clear that the Whitehall mindset has yet to catch up. Too much of the wording in the current solar consultation has the whiff of Groundhog Day about it. It’s time that the government woke up to the fact that, with stable support, jobs rich UK solar will be cheaper than onshore wind during the next Parliament, opening up immense opportunities for UK PLC and driving down the costs of delivering the 2020 renewable energy target in the process.
“Far from slamming the brakes on large-scale solar, the Prime Minister should be hailing it as one of Britain’s renewable energy success stories and getting behind it. Instead he prefers to push fracking, even in National Parks.”
The STA claims that DECC’s entire reason for revising support for large-scale solar is unfounded. The association calculates that solar farms only account for 5% of RO expenditure, and therefore rejects the claim that solar farm deployment is threatening the levy control framework (LCF).
In addition, the STA is extremely critical of the government’s apparent push to promote the deployment of commercial rooftop solar, labelling the outlined proposals as “wide of the mark”. As a result, the STA is asking government to issue another consultation to ‘properly address’ the barriers to rooftop solar deployment.
The letter will be delivered to 10 Downing Street today at midday today.”
Telegraph: “Government attempts to curb the spread of solar farms by ending a lucrative subsidy scheme will not succeed because a replacement payment system is actually more attractive, an energy boss has claimed.”
“Ministers announced in May that they would cut off subsidies for large solar farms under the so-called Renewable Obligation (RO) from March 2015, two years earlier than planned, after admitting the generous payments had led to far more farms being built than expected.
Greg Barker, the energy minister, vowed solar would not become “the new onshore wind” and that solar panels construction would now focus on factory roofs instead of the countryside.
The solar farm industry has complained the change will indeed curtail development, claiming that a complicated replacement system of green energy subsidies, called Contracts for Difference (CfDs), “doesn’t work for solar”. Hundreds of proposed new projects could be scrapped if they cannot ensure they are up and running by March, companies claim.
But now one major solar farm builder has broken ranks, telling theTelegraph the changes could make no difference to the number of new farms and that the new subsidy system is actually more attractive.
Robert Goss, managing director of Conergy, said: “It isn’t at all clear that changing the incentives will actually reduce the number of solar farms being built.”
He said that investors were simply speeding up some projects to complete them under the existing subsidy scheme, and would then build a new wave of projects under the replacement system.
“The CfDs will see a new phase of development, and will be more attractive than the [old scheme] as they offer a fixed price. Investors love that certainty,” he said.
Conergy is sufficiently unfazed by the change that it has just bought a series of planned solar farm projects, including some that will be affected by the subsidy cut and are not yet in the planning system. It now plans to spend £200m building them, following the deal announced this weekend.
….Paul Barwell, chief executive of the Solar Trade Association, the industry body, insisted that if the Government did not revise its plans it would “curtail the market really quite dramatically for large-scale solar”.
He forecast that “many of the developers will end up going out of businesses” because they would be unable to secure subsidies under the new system.
He said there were now estimated to be between 1.5GW and 1.9GW of the large-scale solar farms – those bigger than 25 acres – up and running. DECC data suggests this could equate to between 100 and 200 solar farms.
Mr Barwell said another 450MW was under construction and that ministers had told him they expected another 1.2GW to be built under the existing scheme. But he said the industry believed just 20pc of those projects would now actually get built, as a result of the changes.
Projects were already being scrapped because financial backers would not take a risk on them completing in time, he said.
Juliet Davenport, chief executive of energy supplier and solar farm developer Good Energy, said that six of its proposed solar farms would be at risk as a result of the changes and that “hundreds” could be at risk across the industry.
Jeremy Leggett, founder of Solar Century, said the changes felt like “groundhog day”. He said it was impossible for all projects that were planned for the old scheme to be rushed through by March and that National Audit Office analysis of the amount of funding available under the new subsidy scheme implied “a large cut in large-scale solar deployment in 2015/16”.
Good Energy, Solar Century and the Solar Trade Association all declined to identify any of the projects at risk from the changes.”
STA press release: Over 150 businesses tell Cameron: back British solar industry / Prime Minister urged to give solar power one more push for zero-subsidy / Stronger action on mid/large solar rooftop market needed
A coalition of over 150 businesses from the solar industry and beyond have come together to warn David Cameron of the threat to Britain’s thriving solar industry.
A letter (full text below) to Downing Street from a wide coalition of both big and small businesses including household names such as IKEA has asked the Prime Minister to back the UK solar industry. Signatories include Triodos Bank, Ecotricity, KYOCERA, Interface, Good Energy and the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology at Loughborough University.
The letter was signed by a host of small businesses involved in solar, showing how the industry is made up of over 2,000 small and medium sized businesses who support 16,000 jobs – in stark contrast to the Big 6 utilities.
The letter comes on the day the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) closes its consultation [1] on proposed changes to support for solar power. The proposals are already having a damaging effect on parts of the solar industry.
The letter highlights the critical importance of commercial and industrial roofs, as well as solar farms, in delivering low-cost solar. It urges the PM to secure the UK industry with an eye on the £78billion per annum global solar market anticipated in 2020.
The signatories underline the very positive benefits that solar parity will deliver for UK businesses including improving international competitiveness, lower energy price inflation and improved electricity sector competition.
Despite the vision set out in DECC’s own Solar PV Strategy [2] of solar booming across large roofs, the Solar Trade Association, who organised the letter, say that the current policy framework is not enabling this to happen. The STA also argues that the DECC consultation which closes today on Feed-In Tariffs [3], a support scheme essential to the success of roof-top schemes, doesn’t address the policy failure on mid-large solar roofs.
Commenting on the letter, Solar Trade Association Chief Executive Paul Barwell commented:
“Solar is a home-grown solution to Britain’s energy crisis. If the Government provides a stable policy environment solar will soon be subsidy free. But the Government is now proposing to tilt the playing field against large-scale solar, while not taking sufficient action to unlock commercial rooftop solar – that is unacceptable.”
“We urge DECC not to close the Renewables Obligation to large-scale solar and to rethink proposals on Feed in Tariffs to allow a meaningful rooftop market which their own Solar PV Strategy recognises has such tremendous potential.”
“The level of policy uncertainty risks derailing the extraordinary progress the large-scale industry has made in delivering jobs and reducing technology costs in the last few years. It is also putting the UK’s position in the booming global solar market at risk.”
“So serious are the implications of these consultations for the British solar industry that we are asking the Prime Minister to intervene. We only need one more push, one more period of policy stability to be able to compete with fossil fuels without support. That is the global race the PM needs to win for the UK economy and the climate.”
Jeremy Leggett, who is Chair of SolarAid and Non-executive Chairman of SolarCentury and who will also be handing the letter over to Downing Street on behalf of the signatories said:
“Despite all of the incredible achievements of the UK solar industry since 2010, it’s still very clear that the Whitehall mindset has yet to catch up.”
“Too much of the wording in the current solar consultation has the whiff of Groundhog Day about it. It’s time that the government woke up to the fact that, with stable support, jobs rich UK solar will be cheaper than onshore wind during the next Parliament, opening up immense opportunities for UK PLC and driving down the costs of delivering the 2020 renewable energy target in the process.”
“Far from slamming the brakes on large-scale solar, the Prime Minister should be hailing it as one of Britain’s renewable energy success stories and getting behind it. Instead he prefers to push fracking, even in National Parks.”
The two DECC consultations focus on controlling spending for large-scale PV within the Renewables Obligation and ‘promoting the deployment of midscale building-mounted solar PV’ under the FIT.
However the Solar Trade Association says that DECC’s claims that large-scale solar is a threat to the Renewables Obligation budget are ill-founded given solar currently accounts for just 5% of Renewables Obligation expenditure. The NAO has recently criticized [4] DECC for awarding 58% of the entire 2020 renewables budget to just 7 projects (6 of which are more expensive than solar power). In addition DECC’s proposals to ‘promote’ the deployment of rooftop solar under FITs are wide off the mark on the essential changes necessary to enable the take-off of roof-top solar. The STA is urging DECC to produce a new consultation that properly addresses the barriers to roof-top solar deployment.
The letter is being handed over to Downing Street at 12noon today (Monday 7 July).ENDS
[1] DECC, Consultation on changes to financial support for solar PV, published 13 May 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-changes-to-financial-support-for-solar-pv
[2] DECC, Solar PV Strategy, published 14 April 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-solar-pv-strategy-part-1-roadmap-to-a-brighter-future
[3] DECC, Consultation on changes to financial support for solar PV, published 13 May 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-changes-to-financial-support-for-solar-pv
[4] http://www.nao.org.uk/report/early-contracts-for-renewable-electricity/
FULL TEXT OF LETTER etc
