Solar news update on UK solar PV and solar thermal: politics, consumer studies and grants. Tuesday 28 June 2011. We aim to keep you up to date with newsy items of great navel-gazing significance in the solar microcosm. Feel free to pass them on to people whom you know, who might enjoy reading them! 1/ [...]

Which? Magazine, organ of the Consmers’ Association condemn in-your-home solar PV sellers in new report: 24 June 2011. Solar PV companies use dodgy sales tactics and give poor advice to consumers wanting to buy solar PV (photovoltaic) panels, says Which? Magazine in a new hard-hitting article. In an undercover sting operation, Which? found three quarters [...]

Solar water heating competition update newflash: Good news 1. We have just heard today that we are once again, after years of exclusion, full members of the Solar Trade Association. Also that we have been invited to help to shape the future of a new and more inclusive UK solar trade body. We probably have [...]

Solar PV costs-benefits analysis. Solartwin home Solar Electricity installations give around 8-10% return on capital / 4-6% return on investment over 25 years. So far, the UK Government has spared Home Solar Electric Installations from savage solar cuts elsewhere. The money point is that the day when your Solartwin installation takes place, this date then [...]

Congratulations to all the award winners of the British Renewable Energy Awards 2011! Pioneer: Beech Properties Community: Isle of Eigg Region: The Welsh Assembly Government Installer: EvoEnergy Innovator: Didcot Biomethane Project Team Project Developer: Ecotricity / Fen Farm Solar Park Company: Solarsense Champion: Peter Edwards Wind Electric Godfrey Bevan. From all of us at Solar [...]

Solar thermal panels, solar heating, solar power, RHI, RHIP, RHIPP, Scotland news. RHI and RHPP are now OK for Scotland! Scottish householders and business will be delighted to hear that the Renewable Heat Incentive (which is already being rolled out for England and Wales) will be extended to Scotland as well. Scotland’s Energy Minister, Fergus [...]

Solar PV electric news: buy now or miss out for ever on over-generous subsidies. Midsummer is coming, with its high peak sunlight levels, but that is not the only reason why solar is a great idea – right now. There is some much more pressing urgency. Cuts. It’s a matter of “use it or lose [...]

Only very clean and very low carbon renewable energy technologies should be subsidised in homes which are on the UK gas grid, under the Renewable Heat Incentive. 1/ In most UK homes, the carbon saving from heat pumps is only 9% (vs solar thermal at 10-20%.) Heat pumps may be no better than condensing gas [...]

Solar News: 8 June 2011. Kerr MacGregor, inventor of Solarywin and many other energy saving devices has been honoured with an obituary in the Guardian. A ten minute, video profile, expanding on Kerr’s life as an inventor, polymath and tireless environmental campaigner, is below.

Solar News 9 June 2011. Scottish Power has just raised gas prices by 19% and electricity prices by 10%. Generally when one energy company does his the others follow, so will there be an avalanche of price rises by other utilities? One wonders, if a utility can raise gas prices by 20%, then why can’t [...]