INDUSTRY I OPINION


from this ‘renewables energy expert’. The correct answer, according to Lark Energy, is about 8 million kettles. But kettle analogies aside, perhaps – once again - this all comes down to educated facts being in the public domain.


Let’s return to Cornwall and Devon. These two counties have accounted for about one-third of all solar PV in the UK (rooftop and ground-mount). However, as shown in Figure 5, the share assigned to Cornwall has been declining during 2013, mainly driven by the migration of project developers to the East. During 1H’13, there was more solar PV installed in Devon than any other county in the UK.


The multi-GW project pipeline


Figure 4: Until the end of Q2’13, ground-mount projects were concentrated mostly across the South and East regions of the UK


To illustrate this, within the past few days, the following statements were made by locals commenting on the proposed solar PV farm at Bridgham, in what has become one of the most eagerly tracked applications this year:


£ “We are not anti solar farms [but] we just feel it is the wrong site.”


£ “It [the solar farm at Bridgham] is not meeting an electricity shortfall in Thetford – the power would serve London and the South East.”


£ “We understand we have to have green energy but the main problem is with the size of what is being proposed.”


While proponents can counter each of the arguments one by one, the overhanging objection stems from the ‘not-in-my-back- yard’ stance; a phrase that has also seen considerable use in the U.S. during the past couple of years, albeit when seeking to disrupt utility plants often in excess of 100 MW.


However, seasoned observers of UK renewables’ sentiment may also claim that the problems all stem from a lack of public awareness, and the necessity to have unbiased comparative data on the true costs, subsidy levels and environmental impacts of all electricity generating sources.


The recent edition of the BBC’s flagship daily ‘The One Show’, broadcast on Thursday 19 September 2013, offered another insight into the quandary that permeates the mainstream media.


Having made the laudable decision to send a reporter and camera crew to the largest solar PV site in the UK (Lark Energy’s Wymeswold Solar Farm) and interview Lark’s Jonathan Selwyn on-site regarding solar PV in the UK, the BBC chose to conclude the piece with comments from a different ‘renewables energy expert’, who stated on camera:


£ “Come December, you’ll barely be able to boil a kettle with it [the 125,000 panel, 34 MW solar farm at Wymeswold)”


For whatever reason, the BBC did not seem to check the facts


Figure 5: Cornwall and Devon have dominated solar PV capacity in the UK, with Cornwall perhaps emerging as the first county to approach saturation status


Issue III 2013 I www.solar-uk.net 15


Regardless of the historic numbers, trends and conclusions, the single most important metric for the UK solar PV industry is the size of the project pipeline, and the risk and phasing associated with each project that is contributing to the overall pipeline. Therefore, the fact that we are even talking about a pipeline of large ground-mount projects at the multi-GW level tells a story in its own right.


Using the in-house NPD Solarbuzz UK Deal Tracker database that now includes comprehensive details on close to 2,000 non- residential solar UK projects, it is possible to segment and filter out the projects against different categories. Some of these are now discussed below, with graphics to support the most recent findings.


First, by filtering out completed projects from the database, it is possible to identify the large-scale pipeline at 3.1 GW (as of 20 September 2013). This is shown in Figure 6. This is dominated by projects at the planning stage.


Looking more closely at the large-scale projects classified as Planned or Being Installed now reduces the large-scale PV pipeline to 2.4 GW. This takes us one step closer to the real pipeline of projects that are seeking to qualify for the 1.6 ROC/ MWh rate and get installed before 31 March 2014.


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