March 2012: Energy regulator Ofgem have just issued their latest quarterly report on the progress of Feed in Tariff (FIT) installations across the UK, providing details up to the end of 2011. As reported in a previous post, the last few months of 2011 has seen tremendous activity in relation to photovoltaics, due to the reduction in the support tariff levels from Government. The newsletter highlights that as at 31 December 2011, a total of 147,112 renewable installations have been registered under the scheme since 1 April 2010 (when the scheme started) of which, more than 65,000 installations were registered within the last three months.
Continuing from previous quarters, Ofgem report that photovoltaic (PV) installations continue to represent the vast majority of newly registered installations at over 99 percent of all installations registered between 1 October and 31 December 2011.
Ofgem fortunately also provides a regional breakdown of installations, which highlights a disappointing level of activity in London. In terms of the number of FIT installations, London appears to come at the bottom – just equal or below to the North East – with around 4,000 installations – significantly below all other regions (apart from the North East) – and only 1/6th as much as the best performing region. This number of installations in London represents less than 3% of the total as at December 2011.
Ofgem also helpfully provide the following regional generation capacity breakdown:
Of the total 661.07MW of of generation capacity registered under the FITs scheme since 1 April 2010, London has the second lowest level of installed capacity at 17.78MW – just 2.7% of the total (only the North East is lower – a region which does after all have lower levels of insolation).
No analysis has been undertaken as yet to why some regions have been more successful than others, or what have been the key factors to the uptake of PVs. London certainly seems to have an active number of solar companies working within the capital and would have significant roof space, both domestic and non-domestic, that would be suitable for the installation of PVs. The high density of rented accommodation (as opposed to owner-occupiers) in London and typically higher costs associated with scaffolding may have been contributing factors. However, it is unlikely that they are the key determining factors in relation to identifying London’s poor performance.