LONDON: The UK installed more than 1.6GW in the first quarter following the Cameron Government’s decision last year to prematurely end the renewable subsidy scheme, market analysts IHS has found.
With the early end on April 1 of the Renewable Obligations scheme for projects larger than 5MW, the country added 110 projects which brought its cumulative utility-scale solar capacity to 3.8W (for a total of 7.5GW including rooftop solar).
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As in markets like Germany, France and Italy, PV developers and installers in the United Kingdom try to demonstrate how fast they can build large PV plants, once the paperwork has cleared,” said Josefin Berg, senior analyst for solar power at IHS.
In fact, some of these projects received their permits as late as early February of this year.”
According to the IHS, one third of the total capacity is controlled by the three largest PV investors in the UK – Lightsource, TerraForm Power, and Bluefield LLP – and half of the total capacity is owned by the 10 largest developers.
Financial investors dominate the ownership landscape in the UK, and we will see many of these newly built plants being acquired over the coming months,” Berg said.
Mr Berg said there were 500 projects in the UK pipeline that were larger than 5MW and would now have to be reduced to “below 5MW, submitted to the highly oversubscribed Contracts for Difference tenders, or scrapped entirely”.
After this rush in the UK, less capacity will be installed per quarter, but the market has not cooled off. How policy makers will react to this market pace remains to be seen, as we will not know much before the coming elections,” he said.
