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Editorial panel members
A View to a Kill
M
y Bond-themed choice of headline this month may well
coincide with the cinematic release of the spy’s latest
outing in Spectre, but it is for more prescient reasons
I use such fatalist language. It could quite as easily
have been Licence to Kill or Live and Let Die in light of the government’s attempts to
dismantle the solar industry.
As I write these notes, just days after the Feed-in Tariff consultation period
formally closed, we are shortly to discover what fate will befall the PV sector
once DECC issues its response. This will be swiftly followed by late November’s
Comprehensive Spending Review, which should decide the destiny of the RHI.
Many possible outcomes to the consultation have been mooted from a 4p/kWh
residential tariff conceived by way of appeasement, late legal challenges stalling the
introduction of cuts, to an all out withdrawal of subsidy by the New Year. Whatever
comes to pass, we can be certain of a complete paradigm shift in the way we sell
renewables, soon to be bereft of their profit-making motif.
Most commentators predict a rapid collapse in domestic PV deployment during
2016 well in excess of 50 percent. Commercial will be less affected, but affected all the
same, whilst redundancies have already begun in earnest.
It was pleasing therefore to see the industry present a confident and united front
at Solar Energy UK last month. Feelings amongst visitors were understandably mixed,
but most were enthusiastic at the prospective end of Treasury-driven interference or
politicking once subsidies are gone. The seminars were full of alternative ways to make
money in the installation market and new techniques for selling.
International manufacturers gave a useful pan-European perspective where
similar changes have already been enacted and national markets have successfully
transitioned away from subsidy. For a full show review please turn to page 7.
Contents
NEWS KNOWLEDGE
04 News
HHIC propose alternative to MCS
07 Profile
SEUK exhibition review: PV sector rallies
over tariff cuts 17 Wind
18 Professional development
Daikin UK lifts the lid on its KEY installer
loyalty scheme
22 Heat pumps
Tips from Gledhill on cylinder specification
24 Commercial section
26 Data pages
28 Case studies
30 My working week
Graeme Shield, Romag
OPINION
11 Q&A GoodWe UK
12 Columnist Bob Long asks if heat pump
deployment targets can be reached
Andy Buchan,
CEEC, Future
Renewable Energy Dave Sowden, SEA
Garry Broadbent,
Lifestyle Heating John Kellett,
Mitsubishi Electric
Paul Joyner,
SBS Liz McFarlane,
Zenex Solar
Tim Pollard,
Plumb Center Phyllis Boardman,
Green Deal
Consortia
Robert Burke,
HETAS Gideon Richards,
MCS
ISSN 2049-3525
Editor: Paul Stephen
Sales director: Jonathan Hibbert
Circulation manager: Sandra Curties
Published by: Ashley & Dumville Publishing Ltd,
Caledonian House, Tatton Street,
Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6AG
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