Our Renewable Energy Blogs

Times are tough on businesses right now, with a triple whammy of economic uncertainty due to Brexit, Covid and soaring energy prices. But amid the chaos are some silver linings that could mean now is the perfect time to invest in solar for your company and cut down on energy costs. Low interest rates and the government’s super-deduction can save you a lot of money on solar PV purchases, which normally pay back in 6-10 years and can also help your company reach net zero targets.

We’ll run you through the benefits of buying solar panels in the present climate, as well as highlighting the potential issues you should be aware of from the beginning, such as solar panel business rates and planning permission.

This year may be remembered as the moment when the effects of climate change hit home. We’ve seen a summer of deadly wildfires, floods and heat domes across the globe. The IPCC published a landmark report on climate science, concluding it is ‘unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land’, causing ‘widespread and rapid changes’ to the environment. In November, world leaders will descend on Glasgow for COP26 to discuss how they can try to limit global heating and its impacts.

It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of the challenge to protect Earth’s habitable climate, but we’re determined to do all we can to empower individuals to take action where they can. With that in mind, we’re delighted to announce that we will be returning this month to Reading Climate Festival.

The world of solar cell development is a mass of competing technologies: an alphabet soup of acronyms and jargon. If you need to know your n-type HJT from your PERC P-N junction, this is the blog for you.

Heterojunction solar cells are one of the technologies touted to maximise potential PV panel efficiency. They are a combination of classic crystalline silicon and amorphous/thin film cells, theoretically providing the best of both worlds.

Not many PV panels have yet reached their end of life, but this is likely to accelerate in the 2030s as early systems (particularly those installed during the FiT boom) begin to reach old age.

Some panels, however, do get damaged, malfunction or are replaced for newer modules, becoming complex electronic waste.

What happens to the modules next is vital to ensuring solar remains one of the most sustainable forms of energy. The good news is that work is underway to tackle the complexities of solar panel recycling...

The return of holidays and foreign travel is on the horizon.

Once the pandemic is over, many people are looking to take more sustainable trips. And hoteliers are rising to the challenge. Between 2015 and 2018, the average carbon emissions per square metre of hotels decreased 10% globally, with a 23.4% reduction in the UK.

We believe one of the most effective ways to cut carbon (and costs) is by investing in solar panels for hotels. They can help to win over more environmentally-conscious visitors and reduce monthly energy bills. In fact, Whitbread, the UK’s largest hospitality company, has rolled out solar PV across 20% of its Premier Inn hotels so far (much of it installed by Spirit!).

If you own a large generator, you may have received a letter recently about the Accelerated Loss of Mains Change Programme. This is related to an upcoming regulation change that may affect you and require you to make a change to your system.

With petrol prices at an eight-year high and new fossil fuel powered vehicles due to be banned by 2030, the age of electric cars will soon be upon us. For those of us lucky enough to have a driveway, we can charge up our electric cars at home, making the most of time of use tariffs to slash costs further. But what’s even better than cheap charging? Free charging from the sun!

Solar panels make a great companion to an EV, allowing you to use the car’s substantial battery to absorb excess solar power so you can drive on sunshine. But what are the best solar car chargers to make for an easy peasy EV-PV experience?

With the sun finally out (in passing), you may be wondering if now is the time to join the solar club. Panels are better looking and more powerful than ever before, energy bills are spiking, and perhaps your neighbours are charging their new electric cars from the sun.

But if there’s something holding you back, it may be that classic British concern: property prices. So today we’re going to try and answer the question... do solar panels increase the value of your house?

In a recent NUS survey, 90% of students said they were concerned about climate change (about 10 percentage points higher than the population as a whole). Students, and young people in general, are naturally more anxious about the climate crisis - the impacts of a destabilising environment will only become more acute over their lifetimes.