[ Spotlight: Solar PV ]
AFTER THE GOLD RUSH
With the heady days of the FITs-fuelled solar photovoltaic boom fast receding, is the market buoyant enough for electrical contractors to build a sustainable business? ANDREW BRISTER finds out whether solar PV has a bright future
I
t was a licence to print money. Where else in recession-hit Britain could you possibly see a return on your investment of 10 per cent? Certainly, solar photovoltaic (PV) was a better bet than non-existent savings rates, a sluggish stock market or falling house prices. Homeowner interest in the technology had been fuelled by the government’s generous Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) incentive scheme, and soon feverish articles in the Sunday supplements led to a gold rush.
Developers and commercial owners know solar represents good value and helps to meet their environmental targets
Contractors saw a market opportunity and geared up for a new business sector that was a saviour as mainstream construction activities slowed down. At its peak, this was a huge market. Figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show that the week ending 4 March 2012 saw more than 27,600 new registrations onto the FITs scheme, most of these being domestic installations. This high point coincided with a subsequent marked reduction in the 43 p/kWh generation tariff offered by the scheme and, despite lower tariffs still offering a good deal, the public proved to be a fickle fan of solar.
FITs and starts So, one year on from that peak, how is the market shaping up? DECC figures show a steady number of installations joining the FITs register, with April 2013 averaging more than 1,900 new schemes per week. In total, there are 427,000 sub-50 kW installations now in the programme. The current generation tariff is 15p/ kWh, admittedly well down on what was on offer, but still offering a good return when you consider that technology prices have tumbled compared with a couple of years ago. ‘Despite the reduction in the tariff, homeowners can still see a return of six-to-eight per cent,’ points out Bill Wright, head of Energy
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54 ECA Today June 2013
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