Larkfleet Group: Paris Is A Solar Charade
"The UK Government attending the Climate Change Conference in Paris this week is hypocritical," said Karl Hick, group managing director of Larkfleet Group, one of the UK's largest solar developers.
"In the last few months, it has taken steps which will destroy the emerging solar industry in the UK at a time when it is tantalisingly close to being the first subsidy free renewable technology. Solar is able to make a very significant contribution to the Government's carbon reduction targets, is far more deliverable that either gas or nuclear, and is the cheapest form of energy generation at a time when the UK's energy supplies are under pressure."
Karl Hick's comments follow closely front page coverage in Saturday's Financial Times about a letter to the Prime Minister from business leaders urging him to rethink his Government's green energy policies. Big companies such as Tesco, Ikea, Vodafone, Nestle, Unilever, Panasonic, British Telecom and Marks and Spencer, write that the raft of recent sudden renewable energy cutbacks are a risk to UK business, significantly undermining investment confidence.
The Energy Secretary, Rt Hon. Amber Rudd MP, recently described the solar industry as a "great British success story". Quite rightly so, in just five years, it has delivered over 9GWp of new clean energy, it has generated 30,000 new jobs and costs have been reduced by two-thirds.
Many leading energy experts, such as the International Energy Agency, have noted that solar is on track to become the dominant source of energy worldwide, and one which can provide cost effective variable and baseload in the future, particularly when combined with wind and electricity storage.
"It would be extremely disappointing, perhaps somewhat ill-advised, for the indigenous UK solar sector to be destroyed at the very moment when other global markets are set to grow significantly," continued Karl Hick.
"But it seems that the Government is happy to see the sector fail. This will involve significant job losses, as are already happening, and the obvious advantages of continuing with solar all being lost."
The solar industry is currently lobbying the government to not completely cut the subsidies, but to provide that small additional help enabling the industry to become subsidy free by 2020. The Solar Trade Association have calculated that for just £1 extra on annual fuel bills, this could be achieved.
"Considering all the arguments, continuing the subsidy seems eminently sensible," concluded Karl Hick. "The time for solar is now. We need the Government to back the UK's highly skilled, highly successful solar sector to enable it to play a leading role in a fast growing global industry."
