Assessing the government’s Solar Roadmap – does it go far enough?

Will the recent publication of the government’s much delayed Solar Roadmap help deliver the promised solar rooftop “revolution”? Seb Berry explains what it’s likely to mean in practice.

Regular readers of this column will know that I’ve long been puzzled by the delay in publication of the government-industry Solar Roadmap. I’m not the only one. I’ve heard regularly from industry insiders asking the same question.

The Solar Taskforce group hadn’t met since December 2024, and many of the headline commitments and targets in the roadmap have already been published in other government documents. So the ongoing and unexplained delay has been baffling. More importantly, in the context of the 2030 target, just five years away, we’ve potentially lost over six months of action time in key areas, again baffling from a government committed, among other things, to delivering urgently a solar rooftop “revolution”.

The roadmap was finally published on 30 June to great fanfare from the main trade body Solar Energy UK, who proclaimed that “a new era of clean energy independence dawned today with the publication of the long-anticipated Solar Roadmap”. Well yes, up to a point.

Let’s take the 45-47 GW by 2030 target confirmed in the Solar Roadmap. Despite all of the industry lobbying since last year, this formal solar power target hasn’t increased since publication of the government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan in December 2024. In that plan, crucially we’re told that the “majority of 2030 clean power projects are already in the pipeline”.

It was partly for this reason that at the time SEUK insisted that 45 GW was a “modest target,” and “lower than the 60 GW goal” put forward by the trade body in November 2024. In particular SEUK highlighted that the Clean Power Action Plan was “making the same critical error as the earlier advice from NESO: the UK’s current solar capacity is considerably greater than 16.6 GW”. Fast forward seven months and presumably the Solar Roadmap is also still making the same “critical error”.

When I made this point gently on social media, SEUK argued publicly that I was misinterpreting the numbers, because the Solar Roadmap also highlights the potential from additional GWs of rooftop solar, not least driven by the Future Homes Standard and larger commercial installations. It’s a fair point, but the formal 2030 target is the target is the target. Why does this matter?

Addressing the complete shambles of solar grid connection delays is surely key to delivering a big increase in capacity.  In the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan we’re told that a “prioritised” grid queue is essential so that “we can signal key projects for clean power and speed up planning and consenting processes across Britain.”

Furthermore, DESNZ spells out that “our capacity range provides a framework for NESO to work with Transmission owners and DNOs to prioritise connection offers”. There are many in the industry who remain concerned about how this will work in practice, as the 45 GW target gets closer, and in particular the implications for longer term projects beyond 2030.

NESO will be guided not only by the 45-47 GW solar capacity range in the Solar Roadmap of course. In the government’s new Clean Energy Industries Sector Plan published just a week before the Solar Roadmap (and largely overlooked by the solar sector), we’re told that this government will be “focused” on “our “priorities” for the UK’s clean energy economy. This will involve making “positive if challenging choices.” These priority technologies include wind, nuclear, and CCUS, but not solar. Solar we’re told is “vital”, but it’s not a priority.

45G W is of course a huge number, and it would be silly not to acknowledge that. Getting there in five years’ time from the current capacity of 19 GW or so represents a very significant challenge. I remember only too well the period before 2010 when just 47 MW, never mind 47 GW, would have been considered a massive step change in solar installation rates.

It’s also encouraging that a new Solar Council will meet every four months or so to monitor progress against the Roadmap, and presumably flag ongoing barriers to deployment. And yet, the experience of earlier solar targets, suggests that getting the formal target right at the outset and ensuring it’s as comprehensive as possible is important. It keeps (or should keep) Ministers focused on ensuring delivery. Who can forget the coalition’s brief flirtation with delivering “20 GW by 2020” and a solar strategy process that completely fizzled out after 2015. We’re still waiting for 20 GW.

That painful experience under the Cameron 2015 government clearly won’t happen under Ed Miliband, but the stakes this time are very much higher. With the clock ticking on 2030, we’ll need to see early evidence that the welcome policy changes in the Roadmap are truly delivering. A formal solar target of 60 GW to include all rooftop solar would have helped at the start of that process.

Seb Berry was Head of Public Affairs at Solarcentury for 17 years. He’s a former Vice-Chair of Solar Energy UK and a former Vice-President of SolarPower Europe. He was presented with the Lifetime Achievement award at Solar and Storage Live 2022.