How Can We Meet Greg Barker’s 22GW Solar Ambition?

In the last week, Greg Barker, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change, has reiterated the government’s ambition to install 22GW of Solar PV by 2020, but tempered it with the statement that the industry would have to help itself by continuing to force down costs.

This has come in for a bit of criticism from the solar industry, as senior figures doubt the logic used to suggest that costs can continue to come down in the same way in the light of EU tariffs on imported Chinese solar panels and so on.

However, here at Southern Solar we’re going to try and help Greg Barker out. He’s an ambitious fellow but you can say the same about all of us and so this post will focus on how we can overcome any hurdles and meet the 22GW aspiration by 2020 – come what may!

There are 3 reasons we can be so optimistic:

(1) We know that the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) still works. We may sound like we’re bleating on about this one – but the thinking is that if we say it enough it will eventually get through! It’s hard for us to ignore when we’re sending out quotes estimating a 12-15% return on investment!

(2) Because the FIT is still so good (plus also more stable than ever), community solar is vibrant right now. Our work continues with Brixton Energy and more and more people are setting up energy groups and investing in their local community’s energy future. Organisations like Abundance are making it easier to source investment using the power of the internet to make it easier for people to invest.

(3) Finance has arrived and the FIT feels like it was made for it. For clients to be able to take out a loan that pays for itself in order to buy your product is surely a salesperson’s dream come true – and this is what has happened. Our Commercial Solar PPA product allows businesses to install solar free of charge and buy the energy at a fixed low price – saving vast amounts of money over the course of 20 years. Solar lease hire purchase allows property owners to own their own Solar PV array and pay in instalments that are more than covered by their joint FIT and savings income.

Despite common perception, this is an exciting time for the solar market. The installation cost of panels can either be justified by the FIT or completely avoided thanks to it. There are more financial products on their way – so watch this space.