Isra-Mart srl: Solar industry "perplexed" by exclusion from renewables roadmap

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The UK's solar industry has been left "frustrated" and "perplexed" by the government's decision to exclude photovoltaic (PV) technologies from a list of eight renewable energy sources it expects will play a key role in the UK's energy mix through to 2020 and beyond.

The UK Renewable Energy Roadmap, published yesterday alongside the long-awaited Electricity Market Reform white paper, details how the government plans to meet its goal of generating 15 per cent of the UK's energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Central to the new document is a list of eight key renewable technologies "that have either the greatest potential to help the UK meet the 2020 target in a cost-effective and sustainable way, or offer great potential for the decades that follow".

The listed technologies are onshore and offshore wind, marine energy, biomass electricity and biomass heat, ground and air source heat pumps, and renewable transport technologies such as biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells.

However, solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal technologies are notable by their absence from the list, despite the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) acknowledging elsewhere in the report that "the government believes solar PV could potentially have a role to play in large-scale UK renewables deployment in the future".

The report argues that solar PV systems are currently more expensive than many alternative renewable energy technologies, but acknowledges industry predictions that the technology will be able to compete on cost with conventional energy by the end of the decade.

"Cost reductions are expected to be most pronounced for electricity technologies, particularly offshore wind and solar PV, as supply chains and technologies develop to 2020," the report states.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, Ray Noble of the Solar Trade Association (STA), said that solar's exclusion from the list of eight key renewable technologies was "very disappointing", particularly given that the report confirms the government is supportive of solar.

He voiced suspicions that the roadmap was written before the release of a recent report from Ernst & Young, which was commissioned by the STA and concluded that solar PV could play a prominent and cost-effective role in the UK's energy mix.

Noble said the report had gained some traction with DECC officials and revealed the STA was planning to commission a second report from the consultancy giant, addressing the jobs and economic benefits that could result from a more aggressive solar roll-out.

Seb Berry, head of public affairs at developer Solarcentury, said he had been left a little perplexed by the government's decision to exclude solar from the list of key technologies.

"The renewables roadmap makes it clear the government expects large-scale solar PV to be cost-competitive with offshore wind and dedicated biomass electricity generation, and cheaper than all marine in 2020," he said in a statement.

"It is surprising, therefore, that PV is not included in the list of eight core technologies the government expects will either deliver the bulk of the 2020 target, or that "have great potential" in the "decades" ahead. The eight core technologies should surely have been nine."

However, other industry insiders were less sanguine about solar being excluded from the list, particularly given the government's controversial decision to slash feed-in tariff incentives for large solar installations from next month.

"There's some improvement given there is at least a case study in the roadmap highlighting solar," said one source. "But it is quite simply crazy that solar is not included in the list of key technologies when other countries are looking at it being a major part of the energy mix by 2020."

A DECC spokeswoman defended the exclusion of solar technologies from the list, insisting that the roadmap "focuses on the eight technologies capable of making the most significant yet cost-effective contribution to achievement of the 2020 target or our longer term ambitions".