E is for Energy

In Germany there are, as of September 2013, 35 Gigawatts of solar energy installed. This compares very poorly to the UK’s 1gigawatt of solar capacity. With all the starts and stops-the funding and then the cuts-the solar industry in the UK does not know if it is coming or going. More to the point the customers who would buy solar for their homes and their businesses have lost interest in this technology. We have just 1/35th of the solar Germany has and we have wasted over 3.5yrs precious time. This is time we and our planet’s climate do not have to waste.

The graph below shows the change this FIT cut has had in the solar industry and the peak before the cut. We now are returning to the lowest levels of installations for solar that occurred before the FIT was introduced. The cost for new solar installations on domestic roofs has not fallen as quickly as the FIT, as our government claims. This is causing a hold-up in the new solar installations the UK needs in order to expand our renewable energy sources.

Graph of installations returns to a flat line!

The graph below shows the truth of interest in solar.

Before the FIT cuts were announced, the domestic solar market was doing well. There was no great rush to domestic rooftop solar. There was a steady slow increase in the installation of new systems. This is similar to the pattern in Germany. The planned reduction in the UK FIT of 1% to 3% provided for the slow growth of installations and the gradual reduction in the price of solar systems. Companies opened for business and they did well. New jobs were created and more taxes came in to the government purse. After the FIT was announced there was a huge rush to buy and install solar before the deadline. There were over 700,000 installations during the last few months before the cuts.

Graph by week of solar installs.

The original plan for the FIT in the UK was the same as Germany’s: an expected reduction gradually over time as more solar and wind energy systems and other renewable technologies came online. The current government decided soon after taking office to radically reduce the FIT by more than half! This created a rapid drop in new solar installs after the FIT dropped. We are now left with a reward system that does not encourage new domestic solar installations: system which barely allows for a 20 year break-even point for the average size domestic solar installation. This has destroyed our solar industry. Thousands of employees are now out of work and many companies have now closed.

Weekly Solar Installs

In Germany, where the FIT scheme has been in operation for over 15 years, the installation of solar systems, large and small, has been massive! Solar and wind energy has blossomed like daisies in spring. Germany now boasts the largest renewable generation of any nation on earth. Nearly 25% of electricity produced in Germany is from renewable sources. The German FIT has been gradually reduced over its lifetime in increments as small as 2 or 3 percent per year. The costs for energy have gone down in Germany.

The UK parliament has passed several measures to compel energy companies to reduce CO2 emissions. Parliament has also enacted several plans to induce businesses and home owners to adopt energy saving measures and renewable technologies. One of these measures is the Feed In Tariff. The FIT in the UK started out at 41.3p per Kw/h produced for a homeowner with solar on the roof. Lower payments for commercial solar arrays and solar farms were available. Wind energy and hydroelectric energy systems also received FIT payments as do anaerobic digesters and other methods of generating energy using a renewable source. All of these FIT payments cost little to the average consumer of electricity and created a large increase in the installation of solar systems, wind farms and other renewable energy systems.

We have reached a point in the climate change model where action must be swift and rigorous. Each and every nation must act now to reduce CO2 emissions. In the United Kingdom we have our part to play. Here in the UK we have set targets to reduce CO2 emissions. Unfortunately the people who want this change and the companies who control the means to bring about change are not working together. Unfortunately the current government of the UK is not helping either. The UK has reduced its carbon emissions some but not nearly enough. We can reduce our carbon foot print and reach and exceed our reduction goals if we work together and use the technology available today.

There is no longer a debate about weather our climate is changing. This debate, which raged for over 25 years, has now ended. Our planet is getting warmer at a rate which is damaging the climate and our (humankind’s) ability to exist. The majority of scientists agree that this accelerated warming is being caused by the CO2 created by burning fossil fuels. The consensus, among major leaders (and their scientific advisers) around the planet, is that we have to reduce our carbon emissions or we will create a runaway cycle of increasing heat that will ultimately destroy all life on earth. The sad truth is that we waited too long to act!