Solar independence for Britain

The Solar Trade Association has published its Solar Independence Plan for Britain, setting out how the new government could steer rooftop solar-generated electricity to parity with retail electricity prices, and utility-scale solar farms to parity with new gas CCGT power station prices, both by 2020.

In the report, the STA looks at several different scenarios, and recommends the government adopt a ‘higher ambition’ scenario with a target of 25 GW of generation capacity by 2020. If adopted, the plan could see 2.1mn solar homes, 24,000 commercial rooftop and community schemes, 2,300 good quality solar farms and almost 57,000 jobs in solar and its supply chains. Achieving this breakthrough would in 2020 only cost households around £13 per year, says the STA.

The report outlines six changes to existing policy that would double the amount of solar-generated electricity in 2020 – from 10 TWh under DECC’s Solar PV Strategy, to 21 TWh under the STA’s higher ambition scenario. This would bring solar to a total of 7% of UK electricity demand in 2020, as opposed to the 3.4% as in the government’s current plan.

The  STA’s recommended policy steps include adjusting the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) in the forthcoming review to allow more growth and gradually bring tariffs for new installations down to zero by 2020. The STA is also seeking to ensure the Renewables Obligation is safeguarded for big rooftops and smaller solar farms until March 2017, and that barriers to the grid are addressed decisively. 

The Plan also explains the importance of backing the UK’s domestic industry with stable and predictable policy support, rather than waiting for international module prices to fall, since modules form an increasingly small fraction of the cost of installed solar.