125,000 UK homes get solar panels in 2014

Solar panels were installed on the roofs of more than 125,000 homes in the UK in 2014, according to government figures.

The figures also show that 700MW of solar energy was installed on buildings and in ground-mounted solar farms under the Feed-in Tariff subsidy scheme over the course last year – the equivalent of powering 212,000 homes.

The government also confirmed that enough solar installations were deployed in the last quarter of 2014 to trigger 3.5 per cent cuts in tariffs from April for installations smaller than 10kW and between 50kW and 5MW.

About 124MW of smaller solar systems were added over the three months and 53MW of systems between 50kW and 5MW.

The Solar Trade Association (STA) has said this is the first time since 2012 that the tariff will fall because of the number of applications installed as opposed to dropping because of the automatic reduction that kicks in every nine months.

The industry body highlighted that solar photovoltaic (PV) installations between 10kW and 50kW grew by more than 50 per cent between October and December 2014 compared with the previous three-month period.

David Pickup, business analyst at the STA, said: "We are particularly pleased to see good levels of growth in the large rooftop market with 33MW of solar – 164 installations – installed in the last three months of 2014, more than double that in the previous quarter. But this isn't enough – we need to see more solar going up on roofs and more gradual reductions in the tariff to get to the industry's goal of subsidy-free solar."