Finally we can navigate by the Solar Roadmap, a joint government-industry strategy outlining tangible steps to scale up solar power capacity across the country.
The Roadmap shows a clear path to achieving up to 47 GW of solar capacity by 2030.
The result of two years of work by the Solar Taskforce – now transitioning to the Solar Council – it sets out 72 targeted actions across six categories, from rooftop solar and skills to innovation and planning.
An interesting recurring theme throughout the document was the perceived lack of awareness about the benefits of domestic and commercial rooftop PV systems – so much so that this was highlighted as a major barrier to reaching the government’s ambitious goals.
To tackle this, the government plans to update its Energy Efficient Home platform with enhanced solar guidance, while the UK Warehousing Association will develop a practical toolkit to encourage uptake among commercial property owners.
Here at SNRG, we are playing our own part in increasing awareness of, and then delivering, smart solar projects (see oursnrg.com).
So let’s take you through some of the most important aspects of the Solar Roadmap plans:
- The ambition of providing 45-47GW of solar by 2030 was confirmed – that’s almost a trebling of today’s 18GW. Furthermore, connecting reforms could provide headroom for an extra 10GW if needed.
- This amount would be equivalent to powering about 9 million homes.
- That same target would support up to 35,000 UK jobs this decade, claims the government.
- Even at the most ambitious end of deployment, solar would use about 0.4% of UK land – which you would hope would ease the narrative of solar taking over, etc.
- The government confirmed it wants solar on “as many roofs as possible” across homes, warehouses, schools and hospitals. The Future Homes Standard will require PV on virtually all new-build homes – the formal consultation response is due in the autumn.
- A standard lease template is being drafted with UKWA to make landlord–tenant rooftop deals friction-free. This is something SNRG has already been enabling for some time, by the way.
- The Warm Homes Plan has been allocated £13.2bn to part-fund solar, batteries and heat-pumps – full details will follow by October.
- A government steering group is looking at additional levers to expand corporate PPAs.
- Great British Energy (GBE) is co-funding PV on 200 schools and 200 hospitals.
- The permitted development cap has been removed – rooftop arrays more than 1 MW in size no longer need planning consent in England.
- Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) have the threshold doubled to 100MW, keeping mid-sized solar farms on a faster track to get planning permission.
- The National Planning Policy Framework now directs planners to give “significant weight” to the benefits of renewables.
- It was confirmed that connections reform will allocate queue places on “first-ready, first-connected” basis across both transmission and distribution.
- The Transmission Impact Assessment (TIA) threshold was lifted from 1MW to 5MW in England and Wales, exempting most commercial rooftops and car parks, fpr example.
- An extra 9-10 GW of small-scale rooftop could connect by 2030 outside the TIA process.
- The Contracts for Difference (CfD) mechanism is being tweaked to handle larger auction volumes, while keeping consumer costs down.
- The government is backing the Solar Stewardship Initiative to drive ethical sourcing.
- Policy preference remains for brownfield, industrial and lower-grade farmland – the use of “best and most versatile” land must be justified and mitigated.
- Agrivoltaic pilots were encouraged, after evidence showed biodiversity and pollinator gains on solar farms.
There is much more to digest on the government’s own website here.
The Roadmap certainly marks a signal of intent to integrate solar power as a central pillar in the mission to deliver net zero and cheaper electricity.
It would be even more encouraging to see more recognition of the role microgrids can play in the big picture – and locally with Place Based Power. We are confident that more light will shine on this area too.
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