Toby is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Engensa. Toby leads our procurement and installation teams and has responsibility for the operational side of Engensa's business. He has experience working for General Electric building their renewable energy business in Munich nestled in the heartland of the German solar industry. Prior to GE, Toby worked for New Energy Finance in London. Toby has a BA and MSci in Physics from Cambridge and a PhD in solar technology from Imperial College, London

Phase 2 of FiTs Consultation Released Today: Further Cuts Coming This Summer

09 Feb 2012

Today, the Government released the next phase of its review of Feed-in Tariff. Whilst it seems that the Government is starting to take solar energy more seriously and has in principle increased its ambition for solar energy they are planning significant further cuts beyond the 50% that has already been imposed in the summer. Here is our response; “The Solar Industry has not yet recovered from 50% cuts, so to face further severe cuts just a couple of months later will be very, very difficult. Solar PV will continue to reduce in cost so that it can compete...

The 101 Tory MPs who oppose wind farms have been duped

07 Feb 2012

I shouldn’t be the one writing a response in defence of onshore wind BUT the orchestrated Telegraph piece doesn’t make much sense. Their specific objections to onshore wind turbines are that they are inefficient, intermittent and look ugly. Lets take them in turn; 'Inefficient' - what does this actually mean, which metric? Inefficient in comparison to what exactly? You can't (if this is what is implied) compare the 'efficiency' of wind to the 'efficiency' of nuclear - that just doesn’t have any meaning. The only relevant comparison here is the cost of energy - and there is...

Current Feed-in Tariff Levels Explained

You could be forgiven for rather confused by the rather complex Feed-in Tariff situation at present, here's my attempt at a straightforward explanation; The High Court has ruled that Government plans to reduce the Feed-in Tariff on 12th December were unlawful and the Court of Appeal has since rejected an appeal from the Government to overturn this decision. As a final step, the Government are allowed to ask for permission for a further appeal to be heard by the Supreme Court although they are yet to do this. Thus legally, as it stands, the current Feed-in Tariff is still...

Government loses second court ruling over Feed-in Tariffs: What does this mean?

25 Jan 2012

What was today's announcement about? On Wednesday (25th January) three judges in the Court of Appeal unanimously rejected the Government's appeal against the recent High Court ruling that recent proposals to change the Feed-in Tariff are illegal. The result of the High Court's decision is that solar PV installations will receive the original Feed-in Tariff levels (43.3p/kWh for domestic installations) until the 3rd of March when the Government will reduce tariff levels significantly (21p/kWh for domestic installations). After the announcement from the Court of Appeal, the Government issued a statement that they will now ask to appeal the ruling...

High court rules Feed-in Tariff consultation ‘legally flawed’

21 Dec 2011

Today the high court ruled that the Feed-in Tariff consultation is legally flawed, suddenly creating uncertainty over the the current Feed-in Tariff level. The Government has instantly appealed this decision, but if the ruling is upheld, then the cut-off date of 12th December for the Feed-in Tariff change could be postponed leaving a window open to still get the high residential FiT rate of 43p/kWh. So what does this mean for you? Because of the appeal there is still uncertainty so we can't guarantee that you would get 43p/kWh for the Feed-in Tariff however watch this space closely....