• Home
  • News
  • In-depth
  • Opinion
  • Energy
    • Wind
    • Marine
    • Solar
    • Biomass
    • Nuclear
    • CCS
    • Infrastructure
  • Policy
    • Politics
    • Legislation
    • Taxation
  • Management
    • Marketing
    • Risk
    • Skills
    • Incentives
    • Carbon Accounting
  • Technology
    • Waste
    • Recycling
    • R&D
    • Efficiency
    • IT
  • Investment
    • Carbon Trading
    • Offsets
    • Venture Capital
  • Net Zero Now
  • Events & Awards
  • SDG Hub
  • Industry Voice
  • Newsletters
  • Sign in
  •  
      • Newsletters
      • Account details
      • Contact support
      • Sign out
     
    • You are currently accessing BusinessGreen via your Enterprise account.

      If you already have an account please use the link below to sign in.

      If you have any problems with your access or would like to request an individual access account please contact our customer service team.

      Phone: +44 (0) 1858 438800

      Email: [email protected]

      • Sign in
  • Follow us
    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn
    • Newsletters
    • Facebook
    • YouTube
    • Instagram
  • Free Trial
  • Subscribe
  • Events & Awards
    • Upcoming events
      event logo
      NZF Pathway - Finance

      This exclusive half day online event will investigate how all businesses can support and accelerate the transition to low and net zero carbon buildings, while maximising the financial and productivity opportunities that will result.

      • Date: 16 Mar 2021
      • Online Event
      event logo
      NZF Pathway - Nature 2021

      Net Zero Nature brings together global experts, business leaders, NGO’s and innovators to explore why protecting and restoring nature is fundamental to global economic prosperity, investigate the transformative changes businesses must make now to avoid extinction, and consider best practices and latest developments. Register now to secure your place for a unique day of learning, leadership and practical insight.

      • Date: 27 May 2021
      • Online Event
      event logo
      Net Zero Festival 2021

      Net Zero Festival is the world's first business festival dedicated to exploring, advancing, and celebrating the global transition to a net zero emission economy. Join us at BusinessGreen's Net Zero Festival – for leaders who won't wait until 2050 to build a better business, and a better world.

      • Date: 29 Sep 2021
      • Worldwide
      View all events
  • SDG Hub
Business Green
Business Green
  • Home
  • News
  • In-depth
  • Opinion
  • Energy
  • Policy
  • Management
  • Technology
  • Investment
  • Net Zero Now
 
    • Newsletters
    • Account details
    • Contact support
    • Sign out
 
  • You are currently accessing BusinessGreen via your Enterprise account.

    If you already have an account please use the link below to sign in.

    If you have any problems with your access or would like to request an individual access account please contact our customer service team.

    Phone: +44 (0) 1858 438800

    Email: [email protected]

    • Sign in
  • Hot topics
  • Budget 2021
  • Carney row
  • Nature-based solutions
  • Net Zero Finance
Blog post ribbon image
  • Solar

Brighter times ahead

Brighter times ahead
  • James S Murray
  • James S Murray
  • @James_BG
  • 26 January 2021
  • Tweet  
  • Facebook  
  • LinkedIn  
  • Send to  
0 Comments

The UK may be enduring an unbearably bleak winter, but the UK solar industry at least the future looks positive

Risks are escalating, the threats are severe, and governments have largely failed to adequately protect their societies and economies. That's right, I am of course talking about this week's international Climate Adaptation Summit, which appears to have done better at diagnosing the problem and setting up yet more well-intentioned initiatives than actually triggering the sea change in governance and finance that is urgently needed.

Everything is mostly terrible, so let's try and focus on something more upbeat instead.

Related articles

  • A Budget of green miracles and disasters
  • The wrong sort of recovery?
  • Shambles squared
  • Pricing the priceless

Last year was a surprisingly good 12 months for the UK's traditionally embattled solar industry. According to new industry figures released late last week, despite the, erm, disruption of the past 12 months the UK added 545MW of new solar capacity in 2020, up 27 per cent compared to 2019.

This was an impressive achievement given the various lockdowns and economic headwinds, but it was made all the more noteworthy by the fact 2020 was the first full calendar year when the industry had to operate without any form of subsidy support.

Those behind the phase out of subsidies will feel somewhat vindicated that the industry is indeed proving itself capable of standing on its own feet in a posy-subsidy environment. Although those who lobbied for a more measured phasing out of subsidies than the changes that triggered multiple boom and bust cycles over the past decade would no doubt counter that emissions would be lower and the UK's renewables sector would be in better shape (at negligible cost to billpayers) if the government had provided a smoother glide path into the post-subsidy regime.

Either way, the future suddenly looks bright for a solar industry that has endured multiple investment-curtailing, job-destroying setbacks over the past decade, and that's even before you consider the imminent boost from onshore renewables developers being allowed to compete for government-backed clean power contracts at future auctions.

Investors have certainly noticed the potential. Last week saw two more major deals as financiers and project developers team up to deploy new multi-megawatt portfolios. The pipeline of projects in the form of both solar farms and large scale rooftop developments is expanding fast.

As a separate report from influential analysts Wood Mackenzie highlighted, this is part of a global trend. The cost of solar power has dropped 90 per cent over the last two decades, and will likely fall another 15 per cent to 25 per cent in the decade to come, the report predicted.

As such, Wood Mackenzie reckons solar is already the cheapest form of new electricity generation in 16 US states, plus Spain, Italy, and India,and it is likely to be the cheapest option in US state, plus Canada, China, and 14 other nations by the end of the decade.

The report concludes the solar power industry is now "highly investible", which is if anything an understatement.

It is at this point that detractors pipe up with all the old objections about impacts on land use, grid stability, intermittent renewables, and the UK weather proferring their critique with the confidence of a man who thinks no one else has ever noticed that it gets dark at night time.

Some of these concerns are legitimate, but the industry's response to them is more compelling than ever.

Around 40 per cent of new capacity added in the UK last year was on rooftops and there are vast arrays of domestic and commercial south facing roofs still available for development. There is also plenty of brownfield and low quality arable land and developers are getting better all the time at co-locating livestock farming and measures to enhance biodiversity. Meanwhile, those who object to solar farms' impact on farm land remain strangely silent about the golf courses that eat up far more space than the UK's solar fleet.

Plummeting energy storage costs and the nascent hydrogen industry are addressing intermittency concerns, while the emergence of domestic batteries promise to make rooftop solar arrays cost competitive in the coming years.

The UK's high latitude climate may mean that solar technologies are unlikely to provide the backbone to the clean power system, but improving solar PV conversion efficiencies, falling costs, and the way in which solar generation can complement wind generations means they are likely to have a significant role to play.

There are still steps the government could take to ensure UK solar delivers on its potential. As with every UK clean tech sector investment in supply chains and skills would help; the planning system and grid access regime could be made more amenable to clean power capacity that will help the country meet its climate goals; and it remains perverse that VAT on various clean technologies is higher than it is on power and gas provided through the grid.

But even without these reforms, the future suddenly looks a lot brighter for the UK solar industry at least.

A version of this article originally appeared in the BusinessGreen Overnight Briefing newsletter, which is available to all BusinessGreen subscribers.

  • Tweet  
  • Facebook  
  • LinkedIn  
  • Send to  
  • Topics
  • Solar
  • Energy
  • Policy
  • Solar PV
  • Coronavirus
  • In-depth

More on Solar

China is under pressure to curb its vast coal power capacity in order to decarbonise
    • Policy
'Underwhelming': China's CO2 set to grow under latest Five Year Plan, analysts warn
    • Policy
    • 05 March 2021
    • Policy
Study shows net zero transition to affect over six million jobs, as criticism grows of Budget's 'climate failure'
    • Policy
    • 05 March 2021
Credit: Apex Clean Energy
    • Wind
A just energy transition in action: Developing 1G of wind power with tribes
    • Wind
    • 05 March 2021
Credit: NatWest Group
    • Investment
Public ownership of private companies and net zero: What should governments do?
    • Investment
    • 05 March 2021
Emissions could be set to rise again without a green recovery to the Covid crisis
    • Climate change
Study: Ten-fold increase in annual CO2 cuts needed to hit global climate goals
    • Climate change
    • 04 March 2021
Households are responsible for the majority of the world's food waste, the UN has found
    • Waste
'23 million 40-tonne trucks': UN study uncovers extent of world's food waste crisis
    • Waste
    • 04 March 2021
ENA
    • Energy
The pathways to net zero with smarter grids and a hydrogen future
    • Energy
    • 04 March 2021
    • Policy
Budget 2021: All the green announcements at a glance
    • Policy
    • 03 March 2021

More news

Global Briefing: UN calls for rapid acceleration in European CCS deployment
  • Management
Global Briefing: UN calls for rapid acceleration in European CCS deployment

  • 05 March 2021
McKinsey looks to boost climate expertise with Vivid Economics and Planetrics acquisitions
  • Venture Capital
McKinsey looks to boost climate expertise with Vivid Economics and Planetrics acquisitions

Consulting giant snaps up leading climate-focused advisors as it moves to beef up its climate risk and net zero transition expertise

  • 05 March 2021
'Underwhelming': China's CO2 set to grow under latest Five Year Plan, analysts warn
  • Policy
'Underwhelming': China's CO2 set to grow under latest Five Year Plan, analysts warn

Latest economic strategy set out by the world's largest emitter allows for growth of both coal and renewables

  • 05 March 2021
Study shows net zero transition to affect over six million jobs, as criticism grows of Budget's 'climate failure'
  • Policy
Study shows net zero transition to affect over six million jobs, as criticism grows of Budget's 'climate failure'

Just Transition Jobs Tracker details how around one in five UK jobs are likely to be affected either positively or negatively by the net zero transition, further cranking up pressure on government to deliver coherent transition plan

  • 05 March 2021
blog comments powered by Disqus
Back to Top

Most read

Budget 2021: Treasury trails green bond launch and £22bn UK Infrastructure Bank plans
Budget 2021: Treasury trails green bond launch and £22bn UK Infrastructure Bank plans
Plant-based fast food: Beyond Meat inks deals for McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut
Plant-based fast food: Beyond Meat inks deals for McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut
Budget 2021: All the green announcements at a glance
Budget 2021: All the green announcements at a glance
Sweet smell of CCS: Coty and LanzaTech announce plan to infuse perfumes with captured carbon
Sweet smell of CCS: Coty and LanzaTech announce plan to infuse perfumes with captured carbon
'Future economy': Sunak pledges to put green investment at heart of economic recovery
'Future economy': Sunak pledges to put green investment at heart of economic recovery
  • Contact Us
  • Marketing solutions
  • About Incisive Media
  • Terms and conditions
  • Policies
  • Careers
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram

Incisive Footer Logo

© Incisive Business Media (IP) Limited, Published by Incisive Business Media Limited, New London House, 172 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5QR, registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 09177174 & 09178013

Digital publisher of the year
Digital publisher of the year 2010, 2013, 2016 & 2017
Loading