Solar Energy Facts – in UK

In this article we will attempt to register some of the important Solar Energy facts about the United Kingdom’s solar energy industry. Solar energy is one of the renewable green energy sources, RES, and certainly one which is widely spread in our parts of the UK.

The article written by Dino Green, Solar Energy Facts, gives us broad list of Solar energy facts and statistics about Solar Energy. We will deal with what is happening in the UK.

UK is a country which invests considerable amount money in renewable energy sources and solar energy is no exception.

• UK due its geographical position receives about 60% of the solar energy received by places situated at the equator.
• An area of 40 square meters in the UK receives about 37000 KWh of solar energy in one year.
• PV panels were installed at the second tallest building in Manchester UK which started feeding electricity in the grid in 2005.The Feed-in-tariff, FIT, was introduced in April 2010. This was used as an incentive to promote the adoption of renewable energy sources in the UK.
• The current, 2012, feed-in-tariff in the UK is 21p/KWh.
• By February 2012 the solar installations in UK could produce about 1,000 MW of clean renewable energy.
• Today solar energy represents close to 1% of the renewable energy produced in the UK
• UK is ranked 11th out of the 27 EU countries in terms of solar energy adoption.
• By 2020 as a result of the introduction of the FIT, it is expected that about 4.000.000 homes will have Photovoltaic cells, PV, installed at their premises and this would result to the production of 22,000 MW of renewable energy from the sun. This is expected to improve UK’s ranking in the EU.
• The average 3 bedroom homes in the UK could save about 800 Sterling Pounds with the installation of solar power technologies for electricity and hot water.
• UK gets enough sun to cover 70% of its hot water needs through the use of technologies which exploit solar energy for water heating . It is worth noting that the average home in the UK spends 3.000 KW for their hot water needs.
• There are about 25,000 Solar Energy professionals employed in the UK. About 80% of these jobs are in the solar panel installations. The number of solar energy professionals is expected to climb to 360.000 jobs by 2020.
• There are over 4000 registered businesses in the UK dealing with solar energy. This number is also expected to rise significantly by 2020.

The expansion of solar energy in the UK is as important as it is for the rest of the world since it will reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and at the same time reduce the CO2 emissions making our environment cleaner and healthier.