A new joint venture between a UK-based asset manager and a Danish renewables investor has been signed to fund a 500MW solar and storage pipeline in the UK.
Details have emerged of the UK’s Smart Export Guarantee (SEG), which will see owners of small-scale solar facilities continue to be paid for surplus energy sent to the grid, aiming to close the policy gap left by the end of feed-in tariffs (FiTs), by the end of 2019.
The UK’s second subsidy-free solar farm, and the first by a local authority using battery storage, has been completed by West Sussex County Council in a project that ticked “every box” and will generate significant income over the next 25 years.
Battery assets have been used in the UK’s Balancing Mechanism for the first time via a virtual power plant, marking the start of what could be a new era for energy storage business models in Britain.
Developer INRG Solar is plotting a 120MW solar array near Scunthorpe, northern England, in what could be the country’s second proposed solar farm of “significant infrastructure” status.
On-site energy storage is “the way that you make the subsidy free package work” for large scale solar according to climate change minister Claire Perry who has pointed to Anesco’s Clay Hill solar farm as proof of why the technology so longer needs financial support from tax payers.
Filipino renewable energy firm Solar Philippines is developing an off-grid solar, battery and diesel micro-grid in the Philippines that could be the largest of its kind in Asia, according to the company head.
