09 Mar 2011 12:03:19
Government must 'take solar seriously'
Members of the solar industry have called on the UK government to raise its ambitions for the renewable energy source.
In an advert placed in this week's New Statesman, the sector has linked with WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to draw attention to the potential solar power offers.
Howard Johns, chairman of the Solar Trade Association, said: "This government isn't taking solar seriously and that is completely unjustified. Costs of solar are dropping as fast as oil costs are rising, and this technology could easily meet a third of UK electricity needs."
Entitled Don't Crush This Solar Revolution, the piece comes in response to the government's review into Feed-in-Tariffs, which it claims are needed to address the "threat" presented by large solar farms.
The signatories argue schemes larger than 5MW, which the government classes as "super-size", are common in other countries and the review is also jeopardising the future of medium-sized installations.
Britain was said to have the lowest target for solar power, generating just one percent of its power from the source by 2020.
The government's target is for 15 percent of all power to come from renewable sources by the end of the decade to contribute to overall CO
2 savings of 80 percent by 2050.
