“The UK has now been a top-10 country for PV demand during both 2011 and 2012,” stated Finlay Coleville, Vice-President, NPD Solarbuzz.
The strong performance of the UK market belies the difficulty period that the UK PV industry faced at the end of 2011 after damaging cuts to the feed-in tariff and a period of uncertainty.
The UK solar industry is now benefitting from predictable feed-in tariff and Renewable Obligation regimes, which is being reflected in strong demand from business, residential and ground-mount segments.
A year of record PV demand has seen the amount of solar installed in the UK exceed 2GW, according to the upcoming NPD Solarbuzz Marketbuzz 2013 report.
Demand in 2012 was even higher than the record levels that the UK witnessed in 2011. The report credits an attractive policy environment, declining system prices and a low-risk investment climate as the main drivers.