Renewable Energy Rules!

The Solar Trade Association (STA) Scotland has put forward a ‘key asks’ document to the Scottish government, to tie in with the latter’s ambitious plans to meet the equivalent of 100% of Scotland’s electricity demand from renewable energy options by 2020. The 20 ‘asks’ contained in the document suggest ways in which the government might pave the way for a solar revolution in Scotland, such as putting an ambitious ‘Solar Action Plan’ for both solar PV and solar thermal, and support for retaining the 5% reduced rate of VAT for all domestic solar retrofit, roof-integrated PV and renovation. The full list can be found on the STA’s website (www.solar-trade.org.uk/scottish-solar-industry-publishes-key-asks-for-scottish-government).

Despite being over halfway towards meeting its targets, with over 7.5GW of renewables, fears were raised last year that Scotland might be on course for failure unless it invests in more onshore and offshore wind farms. According to the STA, “solar can make an important contribution to the rest of the 100% target and provide an essential balance to the mix of renewables in Scotland.” Time will tell whether they will be correct in this assertion, but there’s one thing that the vast majority of people can agree on: the more renewables, the better.

Support for solar in the UK as a whole nevertheless appears to be waning. The DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change), for example, has recently reduced its support, and feed-in tariffs – which reward users for the energy from their solar panels that ‘spills back’ into the network – have recently had a ‘deployment cap’ imposed on them. But if statistics are anything to go by, there’s never been a better time than now to invest in solar. For starters, mathematics professor, Doyne Farmer, and economist, Francois Lafond, published an extensive paper earlier this year, predicting a 10% fall in the cost of installing solar panels each coming year, putting solar power on course to provide 20% of the world’s energy by the year 2027. Add to this the typical £80 saving on your energy bill each month, along with negligible maintenance costs, and you have an extremely compelling argument for making the switch to solar. Oh, and there’s also the small matter of helping to save the planet by reducing the need to burn fossil fuels.

If you are thinking of making the switch to renewable energy or you have any further questions, get in touch with our expert team today. Not only can we help you with any queries you might have, we also offer all our customers FREE quotations and extended guarantees with one FREE annual servicing for all boilers installed before September.