I often talk about how renewable energy is becoming much more mainstream, but this truth was really brought home to me this week when the region’s annual renewable energy statistics were released .
Not only is SunGift continuing to see interest in renewables installations, but this year the survey showed that the amount of renewable energy in the whole of the south west has grown by more than 1/3 in just 12 months with nearly 12,000 new installations. What’s more, global investment in renewables is consistently over £100 billion a year, on a par with that in new fossil fuel investments , which really shows that the tide is starting to turn.
This is no surprise to us here at SunGift. We’re receiving more enquiries from business and householders who are realizing that solar PV still results in up to 20% return on investment per year, community groups that are able to power schools with PV while offering small investors (such as parents) a 6% rate of return (see Plymouth Energy Community story below), and commercial biomass system have payback periods of often under five years.
What’s more, the UK is still way behind many other countries (in 2013 15% of our electricity came from renewables which means there are still a huge amount of people that aren’t making the most of the opportunity to generate their own energy and reduce their reliance on energy companies.
Over the past month, SunGift has, as usual, been doing our best to help grow this amount, featuring on the BBC again, showing the best of what the renewables industry has to offer, and introduce new technologies to the UK market. Some of our most newsworthy stories include a feature on new recruit John Hughes, a ground-mounted system that we’ve installed at Kobashi Essential Oils, the introduction of Optimersion’s Wattson meter to our range, and our sponsorship of Bicton Proms.
Best wishes,
Gabriel Wondrausch
Managing Director
