Today marks the last day that coal will be in the UK’s energy mix since the first plant was commissioned in 1882. But how did we get to this point? What does this mean for the UK’s energy mix, and how will the UK replace such a reliable energy source?
Spirit attended Solar and Storage Convention in Birmingham recently, several notable developments in the UK solar market were highlighted. One of the most exciting of these was the introduction of a new flagship residential solar module from AIKO.
AIKO has made a significant impact on the UK panel market this year with the NeoStar 2, which quickly became very popular with our customers as a solar panel that offers excellent value for its price. The NeoStar 2 is an all-black 455 W solar panel with an efficiency of 22.8% at approximately £70 per unit. The top panel in this range is a 470 W module, which is not all-black but offers an increased efficiency of 23.5%. In just two to three years, this product has enabled AIKO to capture an enormous 10% market share in the UK solar market.
With the recent release of Tesla's Powerwall 3, homeowners looking to invest in a home battery system might find themselves comparing it to GivEnergy's All in One system. Both are top contenders in the residential energy storage market, but how do they stack up against each other? Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of the key features, benefits, and considerations for each to help you decide which is the best fit for your home.
Sustainability has become a major buzzword in the corporate world, with increasing numbers of companies pushing the green agenda both in the boardroom and in their branding. But what benefits does this bring for companies, and with governments increasingly bearing down on Net Zero ambitions, are companies legally required to publish data on their carbon footprint?
For those who have their finger on the pulse of the solar energy market, it's becoming obvious that there is an increasing shift towards the manufacture and use of n-type solar from p-type panels in both commercial and domestic settings, to the point where the former now dominate. But why has this shift come about, and more fundamentally what is the difference between the two?
Solar panels are a long term investment and it's prudent to keep the system in good working order. Like a car needs an MOT, or a boiler an annual service, a much larger investment the size of a solar array is definitely worth checking periodically to ensure everything is ticking over. There are several reasons for doing this, read on for why you should get your panels serviced and cleaned regularly.
Buried by the headline announcement of 0% VAT on battery only domestic installations came a welcome bit of news for charities looking to invest in solar to reduce their energy bills, that is the announcement that charities now qualify for 0% VAT on solar panel installations where the building in question is used solely for charitable purposes. This will come into effect from the 1st February 2024.
This means that not only must the building be owned by the charity but it must be used solely for charitable purposes. There is a bit of leeway here, for example church and village halls that can be rented out but are still owned by the charity, this was already written into VAT rules that there is leeway of 5% in the term "solely", so as long as the building is used 95% for charitable purposes, the VAT waiver still applies. This expands the definition to include places like village and church halls that can occasionally be rented out, so long as the primary use is a charitable one.
The announcement also covers battery installations, so if your charity already has solar PV installed and would like to take advantage of this change to retrofit a battery, now is a very good time to get in contact.
In the space of just a few years, the average panel we install on domestic projects has shot up from around 315W to at least 375W, with more and more residential modules breaking the 400W barrier.
This is down to a few factors, such as the widespread adoption of new, more efficient technologies, bigger cells and bigger modules:
When researching solar PV, you may have come across the phrase ‘tier 1 solar panels’. It’s used as a selling point by some manufacturers and installers to demonstrate the reliability of their products. But is that really the case?
