The government last week published a long-awaited update to its official Renewable Energy Roadmap, detailing how it expects the clean energy sector to rapidly expand over the next eight years, while also announcing new loans for a series of high profile clean energy projects.
The new document promises a major boost to the renewables sector, and in particular solar technologies, which have for the first time been included in a list of key technologies that will be required to play a role in the UK’s energy mix through to 2020 and beyond.

The UK’s solar industry was dismayed when the government’s 2011 Renewable Energy Roadmap excluded photovoltaic (PV) technologies from a list of green energy technologies that would help generate 15 per cent of the UK’s electricity by the end of the decade.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) had argued PV and solar thermal technologies were too expensive to be deemed a key technology for the UK.

However, the updated version of the Roadmap confirmed the cost of solar PV has fallen 50 per cent since the original document was published and that there is now 1.4GW of operational solar capacity.

As a result, DECC said it now believes solar technology has the potential to form a “significant part of the renewable energy generation mix” and will play a key role in meeting the 2020 goals.

Solar joined eight technologies already on the the 2011 list, including onshore and offshore wind power, marine energy, biomass energy, heat pumps and renewable transport technologies.

Paul Barwell, chief executive of the Solar Trade Association (STA), said the inclusion of solar was a major boost for the industry and also welcomed government plans to publish a detailed solar strategy this year.

‘“The Renewables Roadmap shows that solar PV is now fully recognised as a significant contributor to the UK’s renewables mix,” he said. “We’d go further and say solar PV will be a heavy-lifter in the UK’s broader energy mix. We’re going to be a lot cheaper than [carbon capture and storage] and nuclear in the 2020s.

“It’s therefore absolutely right that solar has its own dedicated strategy, as gas now has, and we look forward to working with DECC on this.”

In addition, the roadmap confirmed renewables accounted for more than 3.8 per cent of the energy mix in 2011, meaning the UK is on track to meet both an interim target of four per cent and the EU’s legally-binding target of 15 per cent by 2020.

DECC confirmed that by summer 2012 the UK had installed 14.4GW of renewable energy capacity, representing a 27 per cent increase since July 2011.

Much of the increase came from wind power, with offshore wind capacity increasing 60 per cent to 2.5GW, and onshore wind growing 24 per cent to 5.3GW by June 2012.

Meanwhile, separate figures showed Scotland is on track to ensuring half its electricity comes from renewables by 2015, putting its goal of generating 100 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2020 within reach. Data from DECC showed that renewable electricity supplied 36.3 per cent of electricity in Scotland in 2011, exceeding an interim target of 31 per cent.