Following the post-election reshuffle, Amber Rudd has been appointed the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
Paul Barwell, CEO of the Solar Trade Association, is eager to establish a good working relationship with the newly appointed Energy Secretary to ensure the future of solar. He said, “We very much welcome Amber Rudd’s appointment as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and look forward to working with her to make sure solar reaches its full potential. We need stable policy support and strong leadership on solar – just one final push could get rooftop solar to zero subsidy by the time this Government leaves office.”
“We also hope that Amber Rudd’s experience in finance, her previous experience in the Treasury and her real understanding of the needs of new and growing businesses will mean that she can see the value that the UK’s thousands of small and medium sized solar companies can bring.”
New solar revolution
Despite the Conservative party’s manifesto not leaning heavily towards supporting the future of solar, they did promise to support renewable energy technologies if they “clearly represent value for money.”
According to Paul Barwell, Amber Rudd has often voiced her enthusiasm for solar, taking particular interest in the recent Contracts for Difference auctions where solar was awarded five contracts out of the 27 submitted.
He commented, “Rudd gets solar, and has often talked about the astonishing success of solar and how popular solar is, and has said in the past that she was watching solar’s performance in the CfD auctions very closely.”
And if Amber Rudd’s recent comment to her local newspaper, the Hastings and St Leonards Observer, is anything to go on, he’s not wrong. She told them, “I want to unleash a new solar revolution – we have a million people living under roofs with solar panels and that number needs to increase.”
Solar Independence Plan
In his bid to highlight the benefits of solar renewable technologies, Paul Barwell will be urging Amber Rudd to familiarise herself with the Solar Trade Association’s Solar Independence Plan, “We will be writing to her today to ask for a meeting as soon as possible so that we can get to work and we urge her to read in full our Solar Independence Plan which sets out the steps required to take solar down the path to parity with fossil fuel generated electricity, and make sure the grid is better suited to distributed generation. We look forward to a good working relationship between government and the industry on our common goals.”
The full extent of what the new Government has in store will be revealed in the Queen’s Speech on 27th May.