The Olde House in Chapel Amble, Cornwall, one of Good Energy's new solar generators

By Sophy

We’re making some big changes to our fuel mix at Good Energy. We’re not compromising our 100% renewable guarantee – we’d never do that - but we are diversifying our renewable technologies enabling us to source around a third of our electricity from solar power going forward.

Our trading team has been working hard with many new medium- and large-scale solar PV generators to beat the government Feed-in Tariff review deadline of 1^st August so we can do this. This means that over the course of a typical year, solar power will account for around 33% of Good Energy’s electricity mix, increasing from less than 1 percent previously – and it will help Good Energy to further stabilise our electricity prices in the future. We’ve already pledged to hold them until 2012 and hopefully longer.

"The fact that Good Energy customers will now be getting around a third of their electricity from sunlight once again demonstrates Good Energy’s commitment to renewables and shows that solar PV is a viable technology here in the UK,” says Juliet Davenport, Good Energy CEO. “Solar has a valuable part to play in a balanced renewable energy portfolio, because the sun is often shining when the wind isn't blowing, and vice-versa.”

In fact, we get as much sunshine in the UK as Germany does, although Germany currently generates much more solar power- so the UK has some catching up to do. Good Energy is now working with over 3,000 small, independent generators throughout the UK, most of whom have plugged into solar PV thanks to the Feed-in Tariff. But the majority of our solar electricity will be coming from around 30 larger-scale solar PV generators, ranging from a holiday cottage complex in Cornwall to a factory rooftop in Yorkshire.

There’s been some negative comments in some media lately about the impact of solar farms, with provocative headlines like this one from The Times this week: “Acres of countryside disappear under ‘get rich quick’ solar plan”. On closer reading, it turns out they are talking about just 20 solar farms totalling approximately 200 acres – in the whole of the UK! As Damian Carrington points out in his Guardian blog that’s less than the area covered by crazy golf courses. There are strict planning guidelines to protect the countryside from the ‘desecration’ being claimed by the solar critics – just as there are for all renewable developments - which favour utilising existing rooftops and ensure that prime agricultural land isn’t displaced by solar panels. Good Energy employs our own even stricter criteria on buying solar power.

The fact is we need to be generating more solar energy in the UK – and supporting all scales of solar generation. Solar has a vital role to play in a diverse portfolio of renewable energy technologies. Its predictable nature plays a particularly important role in helping suppliers guarantee future prices allowing them to use it as a hedge against more intermittent forms of generation such as wind.

And, our experience of working with many new solar PV generators demonstrates the FIT scheme’s proven ability to attract new, independent generators to the market. This helps increase market liquidity, reducing one of the biggest barriers to new retailers entering the market, boosting competition and keeping prices low for consumers.

Finally – if there’s any doubt about the important role solar can play in our energy future, it must surely be allayed by a report due to be published shortly by the International Energy Agency -- which shows solar generators have the potential to produce the majority of the world’s power within 50 years.

So we’re particularly proud that a third of Good Energy now comes from the sun!