Solar Business Focus UK

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Book your tickets

NOW! Awards Gala Dinner will be held during Solar Energy UK on

TUESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2013 Hilton NEC, Birmingham

Recognising the best in solar in the UK! • Commercial rooftop installation sponsored by Natural Sparx (powered by Rexel Energy Solutions) • Most successful large-scale groundmounted solar site sponsored by RECOM • Best integration of solar generation as part of a total energy solution sponsored by Lightsource Renewable Energy • BIPV installer of the year • Most innovative system design

sponsored by BayWa r.e.

• Domestic rooftop installation up to 10kW • Best community or public sector installation • Most innovative marketing campaign • Best solar thermal installation of the year • The Solar Power Portal achievement award – outstanding contribution to the solar industry

Introducing the host of the Solar Power Portal Awards...

Robert Llewellyn (Kryten, Red Dwarf)

@_SolarEnergy

HTTP://SPPAWARDS.SOLARENERGYAWARDS.COM Sponsorship opportunities are available.

For further information, please contact: Sue Bradshaw | T: +44 (0) 207 871 0122 | E: sbradshaw@solarmedia.co.uk

Organised by

Awards Ceremony & Category Sponsor

Category Sponsors

6MPBQ DPMK RFC $BGRMP The long summer is drawing to an end.

A combination of record solar capacity and an uncharacteristically sunny summer saw unprecedented amounts of solar electricity generated in the UK. With the market hitting annual demand of 1GW for the first time in its history, the UK solar market is starting to step into the mainstream. With the EU-China trade dispute now in the rearview mirror, the time has come to start looking forward to the future of PV in the UK. As the market matures and we pass the 2.5GW barrier, we can no longer claim to be in our embryonic stage. In fact, we’re now one of the top five solar markets in the world. And it’s about time we started acting like one – if we are mature enough to draw the ire of the Daily Mail then we’re mature enough to celebrate our successes.

That is why I am so excited to see the Solar Power Portal Awards finally take place. With just a little perspective the industry’s achievements have been remarkable. Solar has forced its way into the government’s reckoning because it has been so successful. The Department

Published by Solar Media Ltd. Trans-World House, 100 City Road London EC1Y 2BP, UK Tel: +44 (0) 207 871 0122 Fax: +44 (0) 207 871 0102 info@solarpowerportal.co.uk www.solarpowerportal.co.uk Publisher: David Owen Editorial Editor: Peter Bennett Head of content: Ben Willis Deputy head of content: John Parnell Reporters: Andy Colthorpe, Lucy Woods

of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) now has a dedicated team and a solar strategy in place that hopes to have 20GW installed by 2020 – something that would have seemed ridiculous as recent as 2012.

Great installations far outweigh the miniscule number of bad installations and it is up to us to show all solar stakeholders why the UK solar sector is so special. The announced Solar Power Portal Awards shortlist (pp. 8-11) represents the pinnacle of the UK’s impressive solar industry.

The seasonal change in the air is set to be carried over to this year’s Solar Energy UK show. Firstly, the event is losing its Solar Power UK moniker; Solar Energy UK helps reflect the breadth of the modern UK PV market as installers recognise the need to consider solar as a key component for a whole house solution. This year’s show is set to be bigger and better than ever, the full Solar Energy UK preview (pp. 27-41) will help you maximise your time on the show floor.

Solar farms remain the most contentious area of the solar sector in the UK. A groundswell of opposition led by rural

Design & production Art director: Viki Hämmerle Production: Daniel H. Brown

Printed by Buxton Press Ltd. Solar Business Focus UK Volume 9, 2013 ISSN: 1757-1197

Advertising Sales director: David Evans Account managers: Colin Michael Dominic Thamby Meena Manthena Simon Hooper

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the contents of this supplement, the publisher will accept no responsibility for any errors, or opinion expressed, or omissions, or for any loss or damage, consequential or otherwise, suffered as a result of any material here published.

Subscriptions Subscription manager: Andrea Pochylová

campaigners and championed by a number of MPs has caused Westminster to take note and issue revised planning guidance for local councils. Robert Shaw, director of sustainability and climate change at LDA design explains what impact the new guidelines will have on solar developers (pp. 30-31). Elsewhere, Tom Islley from Solarcentury explains why biodiversity is the key to successful solar farms (pp. 24-25).

After four years of anticipation, DECC is finally introducing a domestic Renewable Heat Incentive. The included RHI focus (pp. 60-66) will help you determine everything you need to know to successfully take advantage of the new opportunity.

To all shortlisted entries for the Solar Power Portal Awards: good luck. Make sure you catch up with the Solar Power Portal team at Solar Energy UK, where we will be reporting live from the show floor.

Peter Bennett Editor

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

An annual subscription to Solar Business Focus UK, which includes five bi-monthly editions, is available at a cost of just £60 including postage and packaging.

Cover image: Blackfriars Bridge Source: Solarcentury and Network Rail

Go to www.solarpowerportal. co.uk/SBF-UK and fill out our simple online form.

The entire contents of this publication are protected by copyright, full details of which are available from the publisher. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be

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Solar car racer Lucy Fielding says the solar industry needs to be more welcoming to women

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By Lucy Woods Like many technology-based sectors, solar in the UK is dominated by men. Lucy Woods asks where all the women are in solar and how the industry would benefit from an influx of female workers

I

n a survey in June of 1,000 Australians by the country’s Climate Institute, 93% of women asked said they loved solar,

developer Lightsource Renewable Energy.

Lucy Fielding, a steel metallurgy PhD student at Cambridge, and solar car racer

women into the solar industry would actively prevent the looming crisis for technical skills.

ranking it in their top three energy sources.

In 2009, 90% of over 1,200 women in the US surveyed by non-profit groups, Women Impacting Public Policy and the Women’s

for Cambridge University Eco Racing (CUER), thinks a wider problem in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) sectors could be to blame. “Women

“We have a massive engineering recruitment crisis in the UK that is just going to get worse in energy; we could have all the right policies and still fall down because we

Council on Energy and the Environment, said solar was important. In 2011, online

are underrepresented in general in the sciences, and I would not expect that to be

just don’t have the skills,” says Greene.

According to a 2011 investigation into

installer locator Solar Guide estimated 25,000 people work in the UK solar industry, but statistics for female employees are nowhere to be found.

different in the solar industry,” she says.

Leonie Greene, head of external affairs for the Renewable Energy Association (REA), puts it more bluntly: “Solar is all men.

gender divides by Engineering UK, the has the lowest number of female engineers in Europe. Plenty are studying to become engineers, but 76% of woman who

So where are all the UK solar women?

We have a problem.”

So the solar industry is male dominated

studied science, engineering and technology did not go into careers in the field.

Is there a problem?

It’s no secret some sectors have traditionally attracted more male workers. “We all know that the engineering, building and

– what’s the problem? The industry is short of skilled employees. Encouraging more

Subsequently just 8.7% of UK engineers are female. The report also estimated

technology markets have always been largely male dominated,” says Kareen Boutonnat, managing director of business development for the UK’s biggest solar

4

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The REA’s Leonie Greene believes solar would be more widely used if women were more involved in the energy industry

increasing women’s participation in the UK labour market is worth up to £23 billion.

Time for child rearing versus demanding work hours are an inescapable gender equality debate in every industry. In solar, Boutonnat says her greatest professional hurdle at Lightsource is work-life balance, describing it as “the greatest challenge” for working mothers.

She suggests enforcing solar’s future-thinking, green credentials – a technology that can make a difference for future generations – as a way of inspiring mothers to enter the industry. She also says conditions are getting better: “Employers are now recognising the necessity to provide parents with flexible working options.”

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Male-dominated workplaces There are many male-dominated professions where others struggle to be heard; the male dominated environment within solar has affected Greene greatly in her professional role. She describes the “classic dynamic” of unconscious exclusion where “men are somehow seen to be more serious” despite the expertise, experience or qualifications of women.

Greene tries to explain further the mystery of subtle gender exclusion in the workplace, joking that it would take an anthropology expert to unravel: “My colleagues know and respect what I do, they understand my skills and they are great, and very receptive and sympathetic to my frustration when I raise gender issues. But they will still run off to meetings and stakeholder groups and no one thinks: ‘Oh wait a minute, we are all men!’”

In her professional life advising on solar policy, Greene particularly singles out the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) groups for their exclusive nature. “They are men only,” she says, claiming that her expertise is never invited. From staff information charts, roughly 80% of DECC’s senior staff are male.

Fielding says she has encountered sexist attitudes from solar racing teams and sponsors; it can be a very “off-putting” and “macho”

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