The recent sunny weather and the surge of Solar PV installations in the first half of the year mean that as much as 15% of the UKs energy has been coming from Solar PV. Read the rest of this entry »

Cardiff University has designed and constructed the sort of house recently described by chancellor George Osborne as “impossible”. The house actually exceeds previously scrapped standards that were considered “too high” by not only being carbon  neutral but actually carbon negative. Read the rest of this entry »

This week the Labour party, as part of their pre election campaign, revealed plans to assist schools in seeking funding for Solar PV. Previously solar for schools was limited due to restrictions on schools borrowing to pursue solar projects. Read the rest of this entry »

When will solar power in the UK overtake its current subsides?

Solar PV in the UK is fast outgrowing subsidies

It’s widely acknowledged that Solar PV  in the UK has taken off, in fact in the past year solar PV installs across

the country have doubled.

The subsidies were put in place to improve investments into Solar PV and in turn further research in order for power generated from Solar PV to reach grid parity.

It’s a fact that the goal is for Solar PV in the UK to become subsidy free, the main question is when? Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

New figures released this month from DECC have shown and increased interest in the Green Deal Scheme

Since the scheme was launched in January there have been over 9,200 assessments lodged.

The latest figures show that the number of assessments has dramatically picked up over the last month, with 7,465 assessments lodged in March – a 331% increase from February’s figures.

In addition to the growing figures, the Green Deal Finance Company has confirmed a £244 million funding package with DECC, the UK Green Investment Bank and other stakeholders. Read the rest of this entry »