UK is one of EU's solar energy leaders

United Kingdom isn't exactly known for sunny weather like, for instance Spain, but this hasn't prevented solar industry in Britain from developing into a respectable player on domestic energy market. According to most recent figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change UK solar power industry has installed 500,000th set of panels in the UK in recent days.

This number is already respectable but UK's solar power industry plans to install one million solar arrays on homes by 2015. The current rate of around 1900 installed solar arrays per week will have to increase significantly in order for UK solar power industry to achieve this goal but many believe this number is well within the reach.

The favorable feed-in-tariff system is certainly one of the major reasons of the growing popularity of solar energy sector in UK. There are of course opponents of this system who claim that all energy billpayers effectively provide additional payments to those households that have installed solar power which doesn't seem fair.

The solar energy industry doesn't agree with that claiming that paying now a bit extra for solar is helping to bring down costs for everyone else in future, and that thanks to public investment subsidies are dropping rapidly, which should in an ideal scenario result in cost-parity of solar energy in relation to coal and other fossil fuels in not so distant future.

But there is also a very strong marketing, and the recent polls suggest that many people in UK support solar and other renewables.

The UK's total solar power capacity currently stands at around 2 GW, and the UK climate change minister, Greg Barker, recently estimated that the country will pass the 3GW of installed solar power capacity in the coming months. These figures put UK at the very high place of the EU solar energy ladder.

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Does solar have a bright future in UK?

UK isn't exactly California or Spain when it comes to number of sunny days within the year. Yet the solar energy industry is the fastest growing industry in the world and UK wants to be an important part of global solar energy market.

The recent statement by UK's Energy Minister Greg Barker where he stated that UK wants to eight-fold multiply its solar power capacity, up to 10 GW by 2020, clearly demonstrates that UK wants solar energy to play important role in country's clean energy mix.

Barker remains optimistic about UK solar development further stating that 20 gigawatts of installed solar capacity is not only desirable but also potentially achievable within a decade.

The problem, not only with solar energy, but the rest of the renewable energy pack, is that the wide spread of renewable energy technologies has caused higher energy bills because these technologies are yet to achieve cost-competitiveness with traditional fuels.

What this means is that solar power is still unable to compete with fossil fuels without relying on subsidies and Barker hopes that this situation will soon change giving new solar installations grid parity with fossil fuels.

Only cost-competitive solar power can have a bright future in UK because people do not want to pay higher energy bills, even despite the fact that solar energy use reduces harmful greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming and climate change.

Britain needs to achieve EU goal of 15% of power from renewable energy sources by 2020, and solar power can become integral part in achieving this goal. Balancing the power grid and creating cost-effective solar power should become the first steps towards large growth of solar power in United Kingdom.

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