Tag Archives: renewable energy

8 out of 10 cats like Renewables, cool!

DECC Report of People’s Attitudes to Green Energy – release from Doug Stewart

According to a study eight out of 10 people* support the UK using renewable energy to generate power. What’s frustrating is that while green energy is high on the public’s agenda the number of consumers and businesses making the switch is still low, says Doug Stewart, CEO of Green Energy UK.

Green Energy UK provides sustainable electricity from a number of sources, and has seen the green energy debate rise from relative obscurity into the mainstream over the last decade. But, despite a clear majority of support from UK consumers, indicating the public are neither unaware nor ill informed, the critics seem to hog the media – and that influences people’s actions. Continue reading

Emerging Solar Panel Industry Trends

By Kriss Bergethon

Having been in the renewable energy and solar power industries for the last 10 years, I often get asked about what the future holds. Whether you are interested for investment purposes or general curiosity, I would say in the general the future is extremely bright for clean energy. Here are some things that we see coming in the next 5 to 10 years that will shape the markets for the industry, and specifically solar power.

Feed-in-Tariffs Will Proliferate

The most widely used model for encouraging solar power installations now is giving rebates for installed watts. The problem with this model is that it doesn’t actually give incentives for producing more clean energy, which after all is the point. Installed watts don’t always translate to produced watts due to installation issues and equipment efficiencies.

This is where feed-in tariffs come in. This actually rewards the solar power producer by paying them a rate for the electricity they feed back in to the grid at 3-4x the actual retail rate. So some homes might be paying $0.11/kw-hr for power but selling power back to the grid for $0.45/kw-hr that is produced by their solar panels. This can produce a profit and much faster return on investment for the system.

Read more HERE

Kriss Bergethon is a solar expert and writer. For more of his useful articles on solar power, please visit Solar Panels.