UK solar news: 14 May 2012. All 4 UK industry associations representing UK solar power join today to clarify good returns for householders. Fears that solar PV is no longer viable are wholly misplaced. Edited copy of joint industry statement follows. The British Photovoltaic Association (BPVA), the Micropower Council (MPC) the Renewable Energy Association (REA) [...]

Open letter to everyone interested in supporting UK innovation. Britain was the cradle of the industrial revolution. We should not strangle green revolution at birth. Please forgive me for writing to you, but, to be blunt, our great British innovation business needs your support. British solar heating innovation (and not just Solartwin’s award winning UK [...]

News: Solar heating market sleaze update. BSI seek to smash up Solartwin and several other solar innovations in breach of their own pro-innovation rules. 9 May 2012. The rudderless British Standards Institution (BSI) is now proposing to stuff solar innovation in UK with a new “code of practice” standard (which is not a code but [...]

UK solar grants news update 1 May 2012. Solar Thermal (Solar Water Heating) Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP). Some good solar news that the RHPP application process is now live. Background to the RHPP on the EST website. How to actually apply online for my £300 RHPP solar subsidy payment. Please tell everyone! No news [...]

What on earth has happened? It is about a multi-stranded boycott of a disruptive technology. Here’s a wee smidgin of the Solartwin story… Back in the 1990′s, while working as a freelance science and technology journalist I featured Kerr MacGregor’s amazing freeze tolerant solar panel patent on BBC Radio 4′s “You and Yours” consumer  programme. [...]

Stop July Solar PV FIT Cuts. Rebalance the UK Solar Panel Market. Give solar water heating much more support: so it gets the same payback time as PV. 190 UK solar PV companies responded to a nationwide survey about the state of the solar sector in the UK. The results are alarming: They had reduced [...]

Discount solar panels for solar PV installations across UK! Thanks to new solar discounts by our valued suppliers and installers, we have been able to cut our solar PV prices again. The reductions on solar PV equipment prices (Solar modules, solar panel mountings, PV inverters etc) are partly due to currency fluctuations so if Sterling [...]

EPC and solar PV. Energy Performance Certificates – what they are… Where can I perform “what new EPC rating do I get if I install solar PV” calculations? Will I get level D? The answer is “quite often” but not always. This is an edited extract from the yougov website. Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) say [...]

There has been a feast of solar news recently in UK, so you might be interested to nibble some nuggets. Householders get 21p Solar PV (electric) Feed in Tariff Grant for 25 years (but only if installed in 12 weeks). After months of legal uncertainty, clarity. Read more. Householders get £300 upfront cash subsidy for [...]

£300 per solar heating installation subsidy, RHPP, has been extended to 2013. Perilously near to its expected close date of 1 April, the UK government’s department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has announced that it is extending its undersubscribed Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) scheme. It is the same old thing with the same [...]

The UK Advertising Standards Authority are a zealous bunch*. Why? Because saying, in any marketing context, Zero Carbon Homes, Zero Carbon Schools, Zero Carbon Offices is now BANNED in UK. The ASA have ruled that NOTHING which is manufactured can ever claim to be zero carbon. Today Britain is the ONLY country in the whole [...]

Solar news: UK-made solar panel supplier, Solar Twin Ltd, writes open letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about the March 2012 budget. Dear Chancellor of the Exchequer, Here are ten green budget challenges for your greenest government ever. 1/ Rebalance UK’s solar panel market. End the appalling imbalance in the solar panel market, one [...]

UK solar news: 6 March 2012. Solar Twin Ltd call for a bigger, better, greener solar thermal upfront cash subsidy. We understand that the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have just held an industry discussion about the forthcoming closure (on 1 April 2012) of the Renewable Heat Payment Premium (RHPP) scheme which [...]

British Solar Technology Innovators, Filsol Solar Ltd, Ceased Trading on 29 February 2012 Filsol Solar Ltd will be wound up after 33 years of innovating and trading in solar. At the time of writing (1300H 1/3/2012) the Filsol website is still up but phones are not being answered. All we know so far is: Finance: [...]

UK’s solar gold rush number two in 2012 is starting. 1 April is UK’s new solar subsidy change date. UK government’s handling of recently solar subsidy changes is no less than clunky: consequently people think that buying solar (both solar thermal and solar PV) before 1 April is a good idea because: Solar thermal loses [...]

Following publication of a year long performance monitoring report on solar water heating in UK homes, Solar Twin Ltd had expected its authors, the “independent and impartial” Energy Saving Trust (EST) to come out clearly and state that “a typical mains pumped solar water heating systems negates X percent of its carbon saving, by being [...]

Breaking UK solar news: yawn… Right up against tomorrow’s deadline, DECC HAS confirmed that it WILL appeal the FIT legality decision made against it in the High Court. The impact of this on us may be up to a year of delay before we actually know whether it is 43p or 21p from 12 Dec [...]

UK solar thermal industry cover up of possible Legionnaire’s disease infection risk in twin coil solar cylinders, via Summitskills’ National Occupational Standards document, is about to be cleverly implemented via MCS adoption, who are DECC’s gateway to RHI and RHPP solar grants for hot water solar water heating systems. I am not supposed to tell [...]

Breaking solar news UK: The outcome of the (still legally-challenged) solar PV FIT consultation was published today, 9 Feb 2012. DECC PV FIT cuts: PRESS release web page. DECC PV FIT cuts: MAIN document pdf. Key points for domestic PV FIT customers are: 21p per kWh domestic solar PV FiT from 1 April confirmed, with [...]

Stephen Mosley, MP for Chester, who takes a strong interest in energy policy matters, has submitted two Parliamentary Questions to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC): 1/ What plans does the Secretary of State have to support Solar Thermal Energy?. 2/ What plans does the Secretary of State have for the Domestic Renewable [...]

Solar PV FIT cuts news UK 25 January 2012. 43.3p Solar PV FIT looks increasingly likely for a brief manic “use it or lose it” 5 week window. Barrister Edmund Robb is confident that the Supreme Court will refuse the DECC’s second appeal and has said so publicly. This would mean the full 43.3p solar [...]

Shivers are shaking UK’s once sunshiney solar industry. Increasingly, tweeters are opining that 21p (rather than a reversion to 43.3p) is better for everyone because it will prevent a gold rush and excessive depletion of a limited subsidy budget. Anyway’ here’s our take on the story: On Wednesday January 25, Some time after 10 am, [...]

UK solar PV FIT cut plan B strategy: More Solar Subsidy Clarity for UK Solar Photovoltaic Panels Consumers! Phew… Legal summary: DECC has announced that it will be laying before Parliament some draft licence modifications which, subject to the Parliamentary process set out in the Energy Act 2008, make provision for a the new rates [...]

UK Solar Marketing News: 19 January 2012. Following December’s ASA decision to ban us from saying “Zero Carbon Solar”, Solar Twin Ltd have requested an Independent Review, following up on some earlier expressions of concern, they have today published a summary of their concerns here. 1/ Complaint Identity. Having only been supplied with an assurance [...]

Solar news UK: Six good reasons to order solar PV this week.   Yes, this is a naked pitch for solar PV panel business. What, if anything you wear while reading this is up to you… 1/ Guaranteed 21p minimum feed in tariff. In response to industry, the government have just clarified that there is [...]

Solar PV FIT legal case UK update 13/1/2012. Looking at the assorted news stories, another period of waiting is due for the UK solar PV industry. Here is a collation of information culled from various sources. Many thanks for solar twitterers for bringing them all to my attention. Solar PV FIT needs review. Who is [...]

Solar news 10 January 2012: Will UK’s old solar crummy old MCS regulations be changed soon? UK solar consumers need to know that influential members of the “traditionally-built” old solar-heating lunch-club have put the brakes on the UK solar thermal market for over a decade, to the detriment: of consumers themselves, (eg in areas of [...]

UK Solar PV FIT cuts questions & answers. (News last updated 11 December 2011) Here’s our take on the solar PV panel FIT subsidy cuts: DECC waved a bothersome red flag. Britain’s leading solar bulls left the pack, impaling us all on DECC’s waiting sword. Q1 Has the original solar PV FIT funding pot run [...]

News: Solar PV cuts. Govt strategy is to appeal. Real strategy is to buy time. The Guardian reports that UK’s government is preparing to appeal against last month’s high court decision which described its plans for hasty cuts to solar feed in tariffs (FITs) as “legally flawed”, leaving the solar industry in chaos over the [...]

UK Solar PV FIT cuts Judicial Review. FoE UK v DECC In case you want to know about the Solar PV FIT Judicial Review by Friends of The Earth, here is our reaction. One the one hand, the fact that it has shown DECC that it needs to follow due process is welcome, because too [...]