News

125,000 homes went solar in 2014

solar trade association
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has published its latest statistics on small-scale solar PV installations , showing that over 125,000 homes put solar on their roof last year.

The numbers also show that a total of 700MW of solar, the equivalent of powering 212,000 homes, was installed on buildings and in ground-mounted solar farms thanks to the Feed-in Tariff over the course of the year.

David Pickup, the Solar Trade Association’s business analyst, said: “These latest statistics show that the FiT solar PV market is seeing healthy growth with plenty of solar going up on domestic and commercial roofs as well as small solar farms.

“We are particularly pleased to see good levels of growth in the large rooftop market with 33MW of solar – 164 installations – installed in the last three months of 2014, more than double that in the previous quarter.”

He added: “But this isn’t enough – as we have shown in our model of the Feed-in Tariff budget, we need to see more solar going up on roofs and more gradual reductions in the tariff to get to the industry’s goal of subsidy-free solar. Our Solar Independence Plan sets out how we can restructure the Feed-in Tariff to get more solar for very little extra money and give a path to zero subsidy.”