Gareth Simkins, senior communications advisor for Solar Energy UK, reflects on the past year’s progress in the solar sector.
It’s fair to say that the good times are here again for the solar industry. More capacity is expected to have been added this year than any other year since subsidies ended – and the policy gains have been huge.
As Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband has been a strong voice for the sector. Just weeks after the election, he spoke of a “solar roof revolution” and denounced nonsensical claims about solar farms.
“Credible external estimates suggest that ground-mounted solar would occupy just 0.1% of our land by 2022. The biggest threat to nature and food security and to our rural communities is not solar panels or onshore wind energy; it is the climate crisis that threatens our best agricultural land, food production and farmers’ livelihoods. The government will not act on myths and false information, but on evidence,” he told the House of Commons.
The National Farmers’ Union is also unashamedly on our side. President Tom Bradshaw this summer condemned “sensational” claims about food security, telling Politico that “it’s a small amount of land that’s being taken out of production.”
Miliband quickly approved a shade under two gigawatts of nationally significant solar generation capacity: Gate Burton (500 MW) in Lincolnshire, Sunnica (500 MW) on the Suffolk/Cambridgeshire border, Mallard Pass (350 MW) in Lincolnshire and Rutland and later the 600 MW Cottam project, spanning Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. Together they form the largest part of the 3.1 GW that has been granted construction permission this year, until the end of October.
His positive attitude towards PV was also reflected when he became co-chair of the Solar Taskforce, the first time it had led at Secretary of State level.
But even before the elections, there was much to celebrate under an often less enthusiastic board. Three ministries have revealed that the energy efficiency of 350,000 protected homes and 2.5 million protected natural areas could be increased by further expanding permitted solar development rules. Furthermore, after a long campaign by Solar Energy UK, VAT was finally abolished on retrofitted battery energy storage systems.
Permitted development rights were extended to almost all rooftop solar installations in Scotland. This was previously limited to systems of 50 kilowatts or less. And in Wales, solar farms of less than 50 MW will no longer require direct ministerial approval from November, but will be transferred to Planning and Environment Decisions Wales for decision-making.
Away from the tumult of policymaking, a massive 31MW rooftop project was announced at the Port of Liverpool – five times bigger than the current record holder and four times bigger than the average solar farm. The project involves Solar Energy UK members EMTEC, FES and Absolute Solar.
As several studies have shown, one of the public’s biggest concerns is about the impact of solar farms on biodiversity. So it was delightful to see overwhelming evidence of how they can benefit nature, in the form of Solar Energy UK’s second Solar Habitat report.
In parallel, we have published a series of factsheets to dispel common misconceptions about solar farms, especially food security. We’ve also launched our case study library, showcasing the best of the UK’s solar and energy storage sectors to the public and media. This includes Britain’s first fully solar-powered park and ride location.
The British elections brought solar energy to power
As well as bringing Labor to power, the general election also brought one of our own to the House of Commons. Ed Morello, previously managing director and commercial director of SEUK members Powen and Zestec respectively, became Liberal Democrat MP for West Dorset.
The next day, SEUK CEO Chris Hewett said: “We are committed to supporting the new government’s national mission to deliver clean energy by 2030. Labour’s first year in power will be a critical period for the solar and energy storage sectors – essential for future energy security, cutting energy bills and tackling the climate crisis. We are confident that the new government will demonstrate a more positive attitude towards the sector and thus strengthen investor confidence.”
A minor drawback was that the elections postponed the publication of the Solar Roadmap. The report was almost finished before it was released, but needed to be both strengthened and brought into line with Labour’s comprehensive review of energy policy more broadly. This is expected early in the new year.
In a further indication of confidence in renewables, the new government has increased the Contracts for Difference budget for its sixth allocation round by more than half. ‘Pot1’, which supports established technologies such as solar farms, went from £120 million to £185 million (in 2011/2012 prices). The strike price for solar was also increased to £61/MWh, again in 2011/2012 terms – reflecting the impact of inflation, but still lower than any other technology.
The subsequent auction yielded record results, with 93 solar farms totaling 3,288 MW securing support.
After the summer break, the Solar Taskforce was reactivated, with the aim of aligning the upcoming Solar Roadmap with Labour’s more ambitious targets. We look forward to its publication early in the new year.
The latter part of 2024 was packed with good news, first and foremost with the revision of the National Planning Policy Framework. The key aspects were to remove the need to take into account the consequences of agricultural land being taken out of production – used by some planning authorities as a pretext to reject applications for solar farms – and to lower the threshold for Nationally Important Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). ) to increase from 50MW. up to 100MW. That should encourage developers to bring forward projects within that range – none were due to the extra cost of the NSIP framework.
What could be described as the crowning achievement of the year was the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. Although initial reactions were negative, a close examination of the footnotes and accompanying material revealed that the industry largely got what it wanted, although concerns remain about regional distribution.
The main target of 45 – 47 GW by 2030 is not a general limit, but instead refers to off-the-meter generation. It also identifies a further nine gigawatts of potential for rooftop PV, bringing the total to 54-57 GW – close to the 60 GW that Solar Energy UK considers feasible.
As for the small-scale market, almost 180,000 installations have been recorded by MCS so far this year – close to the heights of the FiTs (Feed in Tariffs) era. While slightly down from last year’s 198,362, that number was related to both pent-up demand following Covid-related supply chain issues and increased demand for upgrades due to the energy price crisis. It appears that this will grow next year, as new-build homes are equipped with PV in response to tightened building regulations. The impact of the Future Homes Standard, whatever it will be, will be a long way off.
But I can’t leave out the industry’s ongoing battle with network connections. For example, we have seen DNOs bringing forward connection dates under the Technical Limits program, but on the condition that production is curtailed. In some cases this would mean that no power could be exported at all, making an earlier connection date pointless.
‘You couldn’t make it up. The idea of offering a grid connection that you cannot use and calling that a form of success is absurd,” said Chris Hewett, CEO of Solar Energy UK. He explained the situation to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee in February.
It’s also fair to say that we had some backroom issues in response to the NESO scenarios and how they would impact the Clean Power Plan, as well as a whole host of changes to the way connections will be allocated and in charged. Our concerns have been largely addressed before publication, but many details still need to be worked out and not all projects will survive this process unscathed.
Furthermore, the right-wing press has been ruthless in exploring every possible angle to undermine our industry. Even the announcement of the largest ever power purchase agreement was met with dismay – because it would not deliver electricity to homes as the 373MW project in Cleve Hill would. It was not stated that this would remove expensive natural gas from the electricity grid.
Since the election, Shadow Energy Minister Clare Coutinho and the Reform Party have also spoken out against solar farms, often using questionable facts and figures.
Nevertheless, the future is positive. The future is solar energy.