Despite the pressures and challenges facing the solar industry , Howard Johns argues that the future is bright
News Feature : Solar PV
Here comes the sun ! Reasons to be cheerful
Despite the pressures and challenges facing the solar industry , Howard Johns argues that the future is bright
When I built my first solar energy system in 1999 I had no idea what a dramatic transformation and scaling up the solar sector would undergo . My first gridconnected PV system was delivered for something like £ 20k in about 2003 and to get the customer the grant that was available at the time was a virtually impossible process . At the time it felt like a very big deal . Over the next 10 years there were various different grant schemes and , of course , the Feed-in Tariff , which launched the solar market in the UK onto a new scale . The system we built for £ 20k is now available for £ 2-3k and we have gone from basically no solar anywhere in the UK to probably close to 12GW deployed across some 900,000 installations . That ’ s a pretty spectacular shift if ever there was one . Most of the other technologies – heat pumps , biomass and solar thermal – have grown apace but none like the growth of solar PV , which is now the clear winning technology .
Consistent The one consistent thing in the whole journey has been repeated and sudden shifts in the market , which led to massive downturns or huge growth . Unfortunately , working in a market where politics has been such a driving force meant that we had moments where we had to completely rethink our strategy and redirect our business to survive . I guess that probably happened at least once a year . I remember well the days when the grant scheme that was meant to support our month ’ s work closed after 40 minutes in the first day of the month , and we only got a quarter of our clients through the process . We sat there scratching our heads
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Howard Johns — a revolution is afoot
as to what we could do next – that was our business shut down for a large part of the month . Many of you out there will have experienced similar things in the past few years – extremely busy periods followed by big gaps and head scratching . Not fun when you are trying to run a business and put food on the table . Sadly , the market is once more in one of those doldrums . Monthly installation figures for solar PV have hit a new low for many months , and the same is happening for solar thermal . Pretty challenging for anyone running an installation business in the space . Add to that Brexit and the currency impact , Donald Trump and the general anti-green feeling in the media , and it would be easy to be depressed about things . Whilst there are no quick fixes to this situation , the STA does have some great advice for Government that could help ; like requesting that it reviews the FiT caps and does not change business rates for solar . These are simple things that Government could surely do with no extra funds ? For me , though , the big news and what gives me hope for the future is the trends . We are in such a different place to where we were even a few years ago .
Fastest growing Globally solar is the fastest growing energy technology – 500,000 solar panels were installed EVERY DAY last year . You , of course , had a hand in that – but it ’ s a staggering number and shows that we are part of something much bigger than the current industry , affected as it is by smallminded politics protecting vested interest . Economics will trump politics . Solar has been reducing in cost so dramatically in the last few years , it is amazing to me that we can now buy a quality module for less that 40p / watt . The pace of price reduction is not linear , but it is continuing , and this is going to be the thing that makes the politicians increasingly insignificant . Already in many parts of the world solar has reached the magic ‘ grid parity ’ moment where it is providing energy cheaper than the grid . In fact , in some of the large-scale system tenders solar is providing energy at a rate cheaper than any other source of electricity generation ever ! So people are starting to build subsidy-free projects in Italy and Spain , and phase two of the