Bright sparks at Shropshire Council have already saved £4,000 with solar panels
Solar power has hit record highs around the country – and Shropshire Council's panels have played their part, saving the authority more than £4,000 from bills in about 100 days.
At one point last month, almost a quarter of the country's electricity was being created by solar panels, new figures show.
The solar industry estimates the country now has almost 12 gigawatts of solar panels, on homes, offices, warehouses, schools and other buildings and in solar farms – enough to power the equivalent of 3.8 million homes.
In Shrewsbury, the council's Shirehall offices have been covered with 490 panels – reducing its carbon footprint by about 7,400kg of CO2 a year.
The panels, which were installed in March, have supplied the authority with at least 38,140 kilowatts per hour of electricity already – which in turn has saved the council £4,025 in 106 days.
The project cost £180,000 and as energy prices increase and the feed-in-tariff rate increases in line with inflation, the council said it is anticipated that the panels will pay for themselves in about 10 years – giving a financial revenue income in subsequent years.
The scheme brings the total solar energy capacity throughout the Shropshire Council estate to more 1 megawatt peak – the maximum amount of power that can be generated in full sunlight.
It is saving approximately 2.5MWh of electricity and 1,342,000kg CO2 –equivalent to the water boiled for 123,427,950 cups of tea, or the electricity used by 520 typical houses per year since 2012.
New analysis by MyGridGB for the Solar Trade Association (STA) shows that nationally, solar power hit a new peak of meeting 23.9 per cent of demand in the early afternoon on June 5.
An estimated 800,000 homes have solar photovoltaic panels which produce electricity from the sun, and 200,000 which have solar thermal units to provide hot water, which means the UK has a million solar homes, the STA said.
Paul Barwell, chief executive of the STA, said: "The UK has successfully deployed almost 12GW of solar across the UK, providing nearly 25 per cent during peak generation.
"This is what the country and the world needs to decarbonise the energy sector at the lowest price to the consumer."
He said the Government's recent announcement it was adopting carbon targets for the period 2028 to 2030, which would require a 57 per cent cut in emissions by 2030, sent a good long term signal on clean energy.
He added: "Solar independence day is about celebrating what a large group of small and medium sized businesses can achieve in a short period of time.
"We now need just one more push from the Government to help the solar sector reach its objective of zero subsidy by the early 2020s."
