UK Ground-Mount Solar PV Pipeline Exceeds 4 GW

New research outlined in a new NPD Solarbuzz report shows that the UK ground-mount solar PV pipeline now exceeds 4 GW, having grown significantly over the past 12 months.

More than 700 ground-mount projects above 250 kW in size exist, with approximately 30% fully completed, leaving over 480 ground-mount projects making their way steadily through the pipeline, and split into the following categories:

• Pre-Planning or Screening Application
• Pending Planning Application Decision (Application submitted)
• Three different Planning Application Approved sub-categories (Delayed/Terminated, Awaiting Ground-Breaking, Being-Installed)
• Planning Application Withdrawn
• Planning Application Rejected

As can be seen in the graph above, the majority of pipeline projects are currently waiting on council adjudication.

Finlay Colville, Vice President at NPD Solarbuzz, commented on the research, published in the annual UK PV Market Entry Guideproject database. He noted that more than 250 MW in the pipeline has already been rejected (or terminated when rejection seemed likely), and wonders how much of the remaining 2.5 GW will end up the same way.

Indeed, this captures the real sentiment of what is going on at the grass roots level within the UK solar PV industry. It provides a sobering contrast to the record ground-mount solar PV deployment that will be offered by the UK market between now and 31 March 2014.

“For now however, the fate of the 2.5GW pipeline appears to be largely at the discretion of middle-England local councillors,” Colville concludes. “Way more applications are being started than the sum of those approved/rejected/terminated/completed. And supporting this drive is new money from a host of sources (investment portfolios, crowdfunding, etc.) hitherto absent from the solar PV industry in the UK.”