Solar Action Plan
The Mayor’s Solar Action Plan has now been published (29 June 2018). The plan includes revisions based on feedback from our public consultation.
Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to make London a zero carbon city. For this to happen, London will need to be supplied by a range of clean and renewable energy sources.
This Solar Action Plan, the first of its kind for London, sets out how the Mayor will seize the opportunity for solar energy in the capital and increase installations in the coming years through his flagship Energy for Londoners programme. Energy for Londoners aims to make London's homes warm, healthy and affordable, its workplaces more energy efficient, and to supply the capital with more local clean energy.
The Mayor has set an ambition for London to achieve one gigawatt of installed solar capacity by 2030 and two gigawatts by 2050. This represents a substantial increase from today’s installed capacity and cannot be achieved by the Mayor’s programmes and leadership alone. It will need strong and supportive policy from national government and the support of local government, the private sector, charities and individuals. For more information, this can be found on Mayor's plan for Solar on London's Home
Consultation
The draft Solar Action Plan was consulted on at the same time as the draft London Environment Strategy – between 11 August and 17 November 2017. There was strong support from technical stakeholders for the plan. As a result, no major changes have been made. For a summary of the main stakeholder responses to the draft Solar Action Plan, read the Report to the Mayor .
Harnessing the sun's energy
Solar energy is created through capturing light and heat from the sun using technologies such as photovoltaic (PV) panels placed on the roofs of buildings and homes. These are versatile and can be installed in a range of locations. Solar energy projects can be developed and installed very quickly, and the fuel – solar radiation – costs nothing and is pollution free. Solar capturing technologies can also be combined with storage technologies like batteries to provide a reliable, on demand source of renewable energy.
Contributing to a zero carbon future
It is estimated that the Mayor’s programmes will more than double London’s current solar energy capacity. But the Mayor thinks London can, and should, go further than this. Meeting the Mayor’s ambitious zero carbon target is estimated to require 20 times more solar energy generation to be installed by 2050 (2 gigawatts).
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