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The Chair of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities has written to the Joint Chairs of the Government’s new Solar Taskforce welcoming the initiative, but calling on them to pledge to do more.
The Solar Taskforce comprising representatives from the solar energy industry, financiers and the civil service met on 26 May and issued a media release outlining their ambition to boost solar generating capacity five fold to 70 gigawatts by 2035. The group have identified the need to power ahead with solar rooftop installations, on homes, commercial businesses and carparks; increase battery storage; expand the number of solar farms; and explore innovations like floating solar, but the NFLAs do not think this goes far enough.[1]
In his letter to the joint chairs, Minister of State Graham Stuart MP and Chris Hewett, Chief Executive of Solar Energy UK, Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, Chair of the UK/Ireland NFLAs, points out that three of the biggest contributors to the rise in solar generating capacity – community-owned energy co-operatives; farmers; and local authorities – receive no praise, or even acknowledgement, in the media release and should be represented on the new taskforce.
Councillor O’Neill also calls for greater financial and technical support for householders and social landlords to install solar on domestic properties, for greater financial support for local authorities to enable them to ‘green’ their estates and become exemplars of renewable energy in their localities, and for more help for community energy co-operatives, including the restitution of the tax reliefs that once existed to reward investment which were abolished by the Cameron Government; the passage of clauses in the Energy Security Bill to enable co-operatives to supply locally generated electricity to local consumers; and greater support for micro-grids.
The NFLAs also want to see planning rules change so solar panels become a mandatory installation on new houses and for these houses to have south-facing roofs whereever possible, and for the UK to follow the example of France and make roof-mounted solar panels mandatory on larger public car parks.
Finally, Councillor O’Neill has in his letter drawn attention to the big ‘electric elephant in the room’. He explains: “The ambition to generate much more electricity from solar, rather than continuing to burn carbon-emitting gas or embracing the costly, dangerous madness that is nuclear power, is of course welcome, but one practical impediment to bringing this electricity to consumers is that the National Grid simply does not have the line capacity to accept the additional power onto the grid.
“Many media outlets, including the BBC and the Guardian, have recently reported the frustrations of renewable energy generators, including those seeking to operate new solar farms, that connection to the grid could take between ten and fifteen years. This is crazy – government ministers and senior executives at National Grid need to make this an absolute top priority, because without the connections, most of the extra power will go nowhere.”
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For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email on richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk or mobile 07583097793.
Note for Editors
The letter from Cllr O’Neill to the joint chairs of the Solar Taskforce:
The Rt Hon. Graham Stuart MP,
Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Mr Chris Hewett,
CEO of Solar Energy UK
Joint Chairs, Solar Taskforce
Wednesday 31 May 2023
Dear Minister and Mr Hewett,
Many congratulations to you on hosting the first meeting of the new Solar Taskforce on 26 May.
I am the Chair of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) and for the record we welcome both this development and the government’s stated ambition to install 70 GW of solar generating capacity by 2035.
Rather than the vainglorious and costly pursuit of civil nuclear power, this action, alongside other welcome government commitments to increase offshore wind generation fivefold to 50GW, and more than double our interconnector capacity from 8.4 GW to 18 GW by 2030, will truly make Britain a world leader in green electricity generation.
Furthermore, electricity generation from the sun and wind using proven renewable technologies will boost Britain’s energy independence; for to quote US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm one year ago: “No country has ever been held hostage to access to the sun. No one has ever been held hostage to access to wind. We need to move to sources of energy that are not weaponised.”
In your joint media release announcing the meeting, you rightly commend those ‘doing their bit’, whether householders or social landlords, by installing solar panels on 1 million UK homes, but regrettably the statement contains no praise, or even reference, to the many publicly owned energy co-operatives that have done so much to install solar panels on homes, schools, community centres, sports halls, and churches or establish solar farms.
As a consequence not only have many individuals and organisations benefitted from reduced energy bills and a lowered carbon footprint, but as locally owned energy co-operatives pay only modest levels of interest to their members much of their profits is paid back in the form of grants to worthy causes within the communities they serve, and community-owned solar systems installed on schools are an invaluable tool for student education around the issue of climate change and energy conservation.
For its part, the NFLA sees such co-operatives as a big part of the ‘solar solution’ and would like to see many more of them. Whilst you have correctly indicated the need to provide further support, both financial and technical, to householders to boost domestic rooftop installations, the Solar Taskforce should look also at how best it can support the creation, and expansion, of co-operatives that are ‘doing their bit’ and could do more were there a favourable environment in which to do it.
We would suggest that this must include:
- Reinstating the tax reliefs that existed pre-2015 to encourage public investment in renewable energy cooperatives.
- Ensuring that Clauses 272 and 273 are enacted as part of the Government’s Energy Security Bill so renewable energy co-operatives can sell their electricity on favourable terms back to the communities they serve.
- Supporting the development of micro-grids as generating and utilising electricity locally is more efficient and reduces the need to invest in grid infrastructure.
Mr Hewett also referenced the desirability of coupling solar generation with battery storage. We concur and hope that the Taskforce will also look at measures to enable this to become more widespread.
The government should also look to strengthen the planning requirements to make the installation of solar panels mandatory on new housing developments and to site such housing to have South facing roofs to improve solar capture.
Mr Hewett also referenced the requirement to look to establish more solar farms. Again, many of these ‘farms’ are owned and operated by energy cooperatives, so our preceding comments apply, but the agricultural sector has itself made great leaps-and-bounds in embracing solar, and other renewable technologies, to generate electricity to power farming operations or to export to the grid. Contrary to some statements made in the past by misinformed government ministers, farming and solar farming can happily co-exist and agrivoltaics is fast becoming the hybrid reality that farmers must adopt for their businesses to survive.
Local authorities have also proven to be great innovators in the installation of solar panels on public buildings. Most have now declared a climate emergency, with many of these also committing to becoming ‘net-zero’ emitters of greenhouse gases. However, a survey carried by the Local Government Association in March 2020 found that, in the responses received from 89 Councils before the Covid outbreak, a lack of funding was cited as the single largest barrier to delivery.
The government has since published its Green Finance Strategy recognising the need for financial support, but there is clearly still some disconnect as local authorities are now looking to secure funding from the public through crowd-funding mechanisms, such as those offered by Abundance Investment.
Local authorities are often seen as exemplars and so should be encouraged and enabled to take up the challenge of ‘greening’ their corporate estates through installing rooftop solar, and the Solar Taskforce should therefore in our view also look at the funding available to them to support this.
The media release also lists car parks as potential locations for rooftop solar. We agree and would suggest that the government enacts the necessary legislation to make it mandatory as has happened recently in France. Here the French Senate approved a law requiring existing and new carparks with space for at least 80 vehicles to be covered by solar panels.
It is notable that the membership of the Solar Taskforce mostly comprises ‘big players’ in the industry or investors. Given that co-operatives, farmers, and local authorities can play a big part in the ‘solar solution’, it would be good if seats at the table could be offered to representatives from the energy co-operatives’ sector, the National Union of Farmers, and the Local Government Association.
Finally, I must end by mentioning one last issue which is effectively the ‘electric elephant in the room’ and this is the complete ‘disconnect’, both figuratively speaking and literally, between the amount of renewable electricity being increasingly generated, much of it from solar, and the capacity of the National Grid to accept it.
This has been widely reported in the media with the BBC stating that ‘new solar and wind sites are waiting up to 10 to 15 years to be connected because of a lack of capacity in the system’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65500339
This means that new commercial and community solar projects will be put on hold and investors deterred by the uncertainties from investing.
The Chair of the Parliamentary Environment Audit Committee and Mr Hewett have both robustly condemned the deficiency in recent days.
This is one reason why the NFLA would like to see wherever possible a greater emphasis on micro-grids or direct supply to adjoining large-scale users (factories etc) so locally generated electricity can be utilised locally, but the reality is that the continuance of this totally unsatisfactory situation renders the production of more solar electricity to supply to the Grid moot. We would suggest this infrastructure deficiency needs to be addressed by government and executives at National Grid as an absolute top priority.
Many thanks for your consideration of this letter. I wish you every success in your endeavour and look forward to hearing of your progress. In the meantime, please in the first instance direct any reply by email to our NFLA Secretary, Richard Outram, to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk.
Yours most sincerely,
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill,
Chair, on behalf of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities
