Scottish solar industry hits 100MW milestone

Scotland might not be the sunniest place to put a solar panel, but its renewable energy industry is celebrating today after hitting the 100MW milestone of installed photovoltaic capacity.

Analysis of Ofgem figures for December reveal Scotland now has 106MW of solar PV, an increase of 36 per cent since this time last year.

The figures also reveal that 465 businesses, more than 28,000 homes, 56 communities, and 22 industrial sites have fitted solar arrays in the country.

The numbers are in stark contrast to 2010, when 429 solar installations were recorded, offering just 2MW of capacity.

Now the Scottish Solar Energy Group, Energy Technology Partnership, and WWF Scotland are calling on the Scottish government to ensure its policies deliver even more solar.

"Scotland might seem like an unlikely place for solar, but if you look at a solar radiation map, Scotland receives about 80 per cent and in some parts 90 per cent of the solar energy of Germany, the world leader in solar deployment with about 35GW installed to date," said Dr Anne-Marie Fuller, business development executive for the Energy Technology Partnership and chairwoman of the Scottish Solar Energy Group. "So there is absolutely no reason we couldn't be deploying significantly more solar if we really wanted to."

Scotland is aiming to deliver 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy by the end of the decade, with much expected to come from offshore wind.

Lang Banks, director of WWF Scotland, said the Scottish government should be encouraging or even requiring public sector buildings to assess their suitability for solar panels.

He also said the solar industry needed further clarity from government on the future of solar subsidies after the current feed-in tariff scheme had expired and more support for the development of solar farms on brownfield sites.

"Scotland has no solar farms, but it has huge acres of land, so it should be very well placed to host them," he told BusinessGreen.