Huge opportunity for UK photovoltaic industry

REA Press Release - The European Photovoltaic Industry has agreed a target to provide 12% of the Europe's electricity by 2020.

The European Photovoltaic Industry has agreed a target to provide 12% of the Europe's electricity by 2020.

A meeting of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association in Valencia on the 4th September 2008 approved the target in view of several factors, including competitiveness with retail electricity price's in a number of countries. (See attached EPIA Press Release)

In the draft UK Renewable Energy Strategy the suggested figure that photovoltaic's would provide by 2020 amounts to less than 1% of our total energy demand.

"Clearly the UK has a real opportunity to use photovoltaic solar technology to reach its European targets if the proper legislative support is provided" said Andrew Cooper of the Renewable Energy Association.

The Renewable Energy Association is sponsoring an amendment to the Energy Bill that would provide a production tariff to support the growth in renewable electricity and heat. The same principle has been used to grow the solar photovoltaic industries in a number of European Countries including Germany, Spain and Italy.

"Of course the real advantage of people using renewables to generate their own electricity and heat is that they will have a real stake in the government achieving its renewable energy targets. They will not simply be helpless consumers of energy but generators in their right and part of a growing energy generating democracy. That would be the real prize of a strategy that provided genuine support to solar electricity and other renewable technologies."