Solar Power in The UK Heads For A Record

Investments into green technology for the UK has increased to £1.6 billion, but the energy sector will remain under pressure due to growing energy bills.

Research has found that installation of solar power is likely to top all records in the UK this year, and it could offset some of the dependence on expensive gas, however, the global outlook is still gloomy.

Investments into green energy worldwide fell to $45.9 billion, (£29 billion) in the 3rd quarter of 2013, this is according the Bloomberg New Energy Finance, this is a 14% drop from the 2nd quarter and a reduction of one fifth when compared with the same period last year.

Investments into green technologies for the UK has increased from $1.6 billion (£1 billion) to $2.6 billion (£1.6 billion, the sector remains under threat due to rising energy bills which has prompted the calls to scrap green subsidies.

Chief Executive of BNEF, Michael Leibreich, said that scrapping the subsidies would be a mistake and would not help to lower energy bills. He continued that prices of gas have increased more than 8% - he said that it is known that the gas prices were what was pushing up the energy bills, and that he does not follow the logic of how this has to do with green subsidies.

Green energy could help with the reduction of energy bills he said, and points out a period in the UK when the wholesale short-term prices had been reduced considerably thanks to green energy, and in particular wind’s contribution.

He advised the Conservative Party to articulate a clear energy policy that has a diversity of supply. He stated that what the right needed to do was not to pretend that climate change was not happening, that they must not pretend that a transformation was not under way, and they must not take refuge in fracking. He continued that they needed to come up with policies that were conservative and that will create the transition at the same time controlling costs.

Mr. Liebreich, who is the founder of the New Energy Finance, is widely lauded as one of the leading analysts on energy. He also criticized Ed Milliband who has pledged to free energy prices, he said that controlling prices is not the answer as it limits investment, and therefore there will be less supply and prices would go up. He continued to say that anyone who says that controls will reduce prices has been asleep for 30 years.

Economies that include US , China and a large portion of Europe have found that investments into green technologies have fallen, and a continuing sign of this weakness, in a fledgling sector, has found that the political will for transformation of energy’s infrastructure has waned, due to the financial crisis and economic recessions, also in the US due to the cheap shale gas bonanza.

In the United States the total of green clean investment fell from $9.4 billion over the 2nd quarter of 2013 to a low of $5.5 billion in the 3rd quarter. China has shown a smaller margin from $13.8 billion down to $13 billion for the same period. Investment in India showed a fall of $300 million.

Investment were shored up in the UK by the falling price of solar components, this helped to spur solar installations. But the ‘solar farms’ that take up acres of land have come under fire from politicians as well as countryside campaigners.