One of the UK’s largest solar investors believes up to 2GW of the UK’s 12GW of solar generation will change hands in the next 12-18 months. The Foresight Group currently owns some 900MW of large-scale solar capacity, most of it in the UK. At the end of June, it completed the acquisition of the 72MW Shotwick Read more…

Greater Manchester Pension Fund and London Pensions Fund Authority have agreed to increase their shareholding in SSE’s Clyde Windfarm, one of the largest onshore wind farms in Europe. Their investment vehicle, GMPF & LPFA Infrastructure LLP (GLIL), took a £150m share last year, along with renewable infrastructure fund Greencoat. That deal was for 49.9% of the Read more…

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management fund, and solar and private wire developer Lightsource, have signed a deal to create a 1GW solar portfolio in the UK by 2020. They believe it will be worth around £1bn. The joint venture is called Kingfisher and aims to acquire projects from developers in a bid to “consolidate Read more…

UK renewable generation increased 4.2GW in 2016, according to latest government figures. Solar PV capacity, much of it added in the first quarter of the year to beat subsidy cuts, was up by 2.4GW. A further 1.4GW of onshore wind was added to the mix while bioenergy increased 345MW, driven mainly by plant biomass (new Read more…

Vattenfall will compete aggressively on price as it looks to take large electricity customers away from established business market energy suppliers. The firm announced plans to enter the UK business to business (B2B) market last month and is now negotiating terms with a number of large industrial and commercial power users, according to James Hunt, Read more…

  Revenue from energy recovery facilities (ERFs) helped drive Pennon profits last year and the firm plans to increase its generation capacity by more than 50% by 2020. Pennon owns both South West Water and Bournemouth Water, deriving most of group profit from water businesses. It also owns waste and recycling firm Viridor and uses Read more…

“2017 promises to be a year of technological and geographical diversity and advancement”, according to Tim Cornelius, CEO of Tidal turbine manufacturer and project developer Atlantis Resources. The firm has a potential project portfolio of 600MW in Scotland, and around 1GW globally. However, realising that kind of capacity will require significant resources. Atlantis has been working Read more…

UK solar photovoltaic (PV) generation capacity has topped 12 gigawatts (GW), latest government figures confirm. There is also more than 3GW in planning, most of it consented. For the year to April 2017, PV capacity increased 7% (792MW) with the lion’s share (56%) via small scale installations (no larger than 4kW). To date, 47% or 5.7GW Read more…

United Utilities spent £45m on solar generation over the last two years and plans to invest at least £55m in the next three. The firm said adding more combined heat and power assets had driven efficiencies but solar represented its main plan to increase self-supply and reduce carbon emissions. It will invest £100m over the current Read more…

Severn Trent’s investment in renewable energy is paying off, with earnings at the water firm’s renewables business up 16% year on year, according to its full year results. The company said it was on track to generate half the energy it uses from renewable sources within three years, which is significant, given water companies are intensive energy Read more…

Stobart Group has set its sights on handling 60% of UK biomass. Energy is the logistics firm’s biggest revenue stream and the group expects further growth as new biomass plants are commissioned. It sees potential to manage and operate more of those plants in the future. Posting full year results to the end of February, the Read more…

Vattenfall’s 230MW Pen y Cymoedd wind farm in south Wales hit full power last night (Sunday 7 May), the Swedish utility reports. The state-owned firm has stated its UK renewable portfolio will top 1GW by 2018 and earlier this month announced plans to sell its green power to the UK business market. Vattenfall is also building a 22MW Read more…

Building materials giant Wienerberger will power all of its UK sites with renewable power from Danish supplier Dong Energy. The energy firm, which makes around half of its revenue from wind power, announced a deal last year via which it said UK customers would not pay a premium for renewable power. This followed UK carbon Read more…

The department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has confirmed support rates for low carbon and renewable electricity technologies within the next tender round. Bidding for the next Contracts for Difference scheme begins in April for projects to be delivered between 2021/22 and 2022/23. The budget is set at £290m/year. Advanced conversion technologies will receive £125/MWh stepping Read more…

Eon Climate & Renewables boss Michael Lewis will replace Tony Cocker at the helm of the energy company’s UK business from 10 April. Cocker, who took charge of Eon UK in 2011 following three years at the head of its energy trading arm in Dusseldorf, will leave the firm in July. He joined what was then Powergen Read more…

UK solar capacity stood at 11.1GW at the end of September 2016, up 30% on the previous year, according to latest government data. At the end of 2016 Q3, the UK’s renewable electricity capacity totalled 33.4 GW – meaning that solar PV makes up a third of the UK’s renewable power fleet. The rise in Read more…

Triodos Bank has provided some £3 million in project finance to Danish Better Energy for a 5MW ground-mounted solar farm in Creswell, Derbyshire on the site of a former coal mine. The bank and Danish firm have plans to build and finance up to 50MW of solar PV in the UK this year. The project was Read more…

Installed solar PV capacity increased 19% to 11.46GW in the year to December 2016, latest government data shows, with a further 3GW in the planning system. Roughly half of that increase (1.11GW) arrived in March as investors in large, ground-mounted schemes rushed to beat the closure of the renewables obligation (RO) subsidy scheme. To date, Read more…

Government has published changes to support rates for renewable and low carbon heat via the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). The department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) remains keen to incentivise larger biomass, which it believes is a more efficient use of available funds, and has merged existing tariffs into one rate. The tiered Read more…