The story of solar power in the UK

Between 2010 and 2015, solar power in the UK benefitted from feed-in-tariffs—guaranteed prices for power generation. In this period, British commercial utility-scale solar power grew at a fast pace. Sugandha Srivastav writes that feed-in tariffs were what the industry needed to get started, but when the policy was prematurely diluted in 2016, growth plummeted. She says that government support is necessary for private markets to deepen and for technologies to mature. She also emphasises that arbitrary rules banning solar projects from farmland should be avoided to let the market decide upon the best use of land.