It was a pleasure to be joined by the Shadow Minister for Energy Security Dr Alan Whitehead ahead of his exciting keynote participation at Solar and Storage Live in Birmingham. Dr Whitehead began the discussion by highlighting Labour’s vision for the Solar industry.
This vision is to link with Labour’s main objective to have the UK’s power supply fully decarbonised by 2030.
“The UK will have an overwhelmingly predominant system based off renewable and low carbon energy from 2030 onwards, Solar will have an enormous part of this.” – Dr Alan Whitehead
Labour have set an objective where the UK’s renewable capacity in 2030 will meet 55GW of offshore wind, 35GW of onshore wind, and 50GW of Solar by 2030. Alan explained that this will come with some challenges…
These challenges come from each industry being at different time scales. Allocation for offshore wind funding rounds need to get underway. Onshore wind generation must be completely restarted in the UK and the industry, for Alan, has “a mountain to climb” to get underway because of the current government’s ban on the development of new onshore wind.
The main challenge for the Solar is increasing its generation by five times its current generation to meet its target. The questions Alan raised for Solar to meet its 50GW target include:
- How can we finalise sites for large scale ground mounted Solar?
- How can we proceed with widespread rooftop Solar?
- How can we expand Solar on residential properties?
- How can we increase Solar’s presence on commercial and industrial sites?
Once these questions have been answered and generation is active, aggregating all of this power will produce countless virtual solar power plants.
When discussing the current increase in the distribution of Solar in the UK, Dr Whitehead explained that it is “really exciting that the price of Solar has fallen because Solar PVs in the past were really expensive.”
However, Dr Whitehead continued, current cost reductions must be pushed onto existing Solar supply chains in the UK. As important as Chinese imports of Solar PV have been in reducing cost, there is no long-term future being dependant on one country for importing Solar PV.
UK Solar PV producers and manufacturers, Dr Whitehead explained, cannot be underpinned by cheaper Chinese imports. The UK must develop the grid and its distribution networks with UK based Solar, doing so will be an “incredible boost to energy security” in the UK.
Alan expressed his disappointment with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s five-year push back of the date at which all new vehicle sales should be electric, and the abandonment of the government’s plan to improve energy efficiency standards for private renters.
Solar has a substantial role to play in meeting net zero targets. Speaking at Solar and Storage live, Dr Whitehead explained, gives Labour an opportunity to present what a new Labour Government will look like regarding the Solar and Renewable energy industry. It also allows Labour to receive feedback on what the industry needs to thrive.
Dr Alan Whitehead’s presentation can be watched on the 19th of October at 13:30 in the Keynote theatre and is titles ‘Labour’s vision for the UK Solar industry.’
Watch our interview with Dr Alan Whitehead and subscribe to the Solar&StorageXtra YouTube channel here.
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