Solar: the radical wing of the energy scene

“What is undoubtedly needed is a fightback against the forces of darkness, which have for too long dominated the energy debate.” That was the (melo)dramatic opener from veteran environmental campaigner Jonathon Porritt when he addressed a solar reception in Westminster last Thursday.

Solar meetings take place in a quite different space to other parts of the energy debate and present a strikingly different narrative. They stand apart even from other renewable lobbies. Unlike with wind or biomass, the solar sector has very little involvement with major energy companies. As a result, developers feel no need to pussy-foot around the fact they want the big six dead. Delegates speak gleefully of the decline and fall of conventional generators in Germany and some are open their hopes for a similar revolution in the UK.

Whatever their preferred solution, all mainstream politicians and energy industry figures more or less all accept that consumer energy bills are the issue du jour. From the right, climate change is painted as a problem we can’t afford to fix right now. Prime minister David Cameron allegedly talked of cutting the “green crap” when he ordered a review of policy costs on bills. Energy minister Michael Fallon said it would be “immoral” to for the bulk of consumers to cross-subsidise renewable levies to landowners any longer than necessary. The renewable sector has come in for a rhetorical drubbing, even as Parliament passes an Energy Bill that sets out long-term support.

The left prefers to attack energy company profits and takes a more positive tone on the need to decarbonise for future generations. However, it was Labour that pushed the cost of living up the political agenda. Ed Miliband’s price freeze alarms would-be green energy investors as much as any amount of bombast from the right.

Porritt articulates an alternative that is about ownership, not price. People need not settle for being passive consumers; with solar they can be their own generators (never mind that they will still rely on fossil fuels for back-up overnight: this is a step on the path to self-sufficiency). He would ban the word “subsidy” in favour of “addressing market failure” – the failure to internalise the cost of carbon from most other energy generating sources.

The word revolution is not hyperbolic, he insists. “It is going to sweep through the energy world; it is going to bring liberation to millions of people around the world.”

There are case studies. National Trust has invested in solar and wind on some of its castles and estates, which its representative sees both as a sound business proposition and a public good. Bentley has covered its factory in Crewe with 5MW solar panels. The Solar Schools Campaign gets children involved in fundraising for PV. Would Michael Fallon like to tell a proud 7-year-old she’s ripping off consumers?

The government figure most in touch with the solar sector’s values is Greg Barker. It is he, not Porritt, who brings up the ugly neologism “prosumer” – a portmanteau of producer and consumer. He talks with enthusiasm of creating “the big 60,000” and installing 20GW of solar by 2020.

Porritt welcomes Barker’s “genuine, authentic excitement” but is scathing about his impact (or lack of it) in government. He heaps even more scorn on Barker’s opposite number, Julie Elliott. Two months into the role, she talks fairly neutrally about the “important contribution” solar can make to the mix. It is too mealy-mouthed for Porritt: “To talk about ‘an important contribution’ is to utterly miss the plot. We are lucky enough to be in the early part of one of the most exciting phases of humankind.”

Such optimism is not universally shared. Solar PV is some way off rendering big energy suppliers obsolete in the UK. But it is scalable, popular and getting cheaper by the year.