Boris Johnson

With speculation rife UK prime minister Rishi Sunak could call a general election next year, Robert Cathcart, a blogger for English installer Solar Fast, takes a look at just how green the current government is.

Carbon Brief has estimated that the United Kingdom would have needed to import 20 TWh less natural gas this year if successive Conservative governments had not wound down the rewards for generating solar electricity.

A mixture of home-grown fossil fuels, possibly including fracked shale gas; clean power; nuclear; hydrogen; and smarter grids, apparently in that order, will make up the UK’s proposed energy security response in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The City of London Corporation signed a £40m solar power purchase agreement on the same day the prime minister outlined a net-zero strategy which failed to even mention solar.

Focusing on the big picture is always challenging, particularly in light of the current all-consuming coronavirus pandemic. However, there are some key issues related to the U.K. solar sector, which will feature significantly on the domestic agenda in the months ahead.

Enso Energy and the former U.K. national Green Investment Bank now owned by Australian investor Macquarie, have revealed plans to develop an extensive solar project portfolio across England and Wales that will reportedly include tracker and bifacial technology and will be financed by power purchase agreements.

The UK Solar Trade Association has laid out its wish list ahead of new chancellor Rishi Sunak’s first budget speech tomorrow, with an exemption of solar from onerous tax valuations top of the agenda. COVID-19 measures, though, are likely to cast everything else into the shade.

The announcement by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of an auction which will include solar next year appears to back prime minister Boris Johnson’s claims to be serious about the nation’s net-zero carbon ambition.

The political statements issued by the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and even the Green Party almost entirely ignore solar power amid a welter of vague ambitions ahead of the December vote. The increasingly obvious effects of climate change have clearly entered the consciousness of voters, though – the net zero commitment even got as high as page 55 of the Conservatives’ 62-page document.

The managing director of London-based energy infrastructure company Statera has told pv magazine a clean energy grid in the U.K. will require as much flexible gas plant capacity as battery storage.