Since the 1970s, solar power has been touted as one of many renewable energy options available to households and businesses in the UK. Essentially, solar power works by converting sunlight into electricity, directly through photovoltaic (PV) panels or indirectly through concentrated solar power (CSP) systems. And although solar power usage has had periodic highs and lows of popularity in the last few decades, it currently seems to be undergoing a revival in the UK.

According to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association, there were 230,000 solar power projects in the United Kingdom at the end of 2011. In February 2012, solar power capacity is said to have reached 1 GW, representing a rapid rise in recent years. The government seems to have boosted its confidence in solar power too. In early February 2012, energy minister Greg Barker announced that the government expects four million homes in the UK to be solar-powered by 2020. This represents an extra 22,000 MW of solar energy capacity that will be installed in the next eight years.

Extra money for the feed-in tariff has also been announced. The feed-in tariff allows people who produce their own energy - for example, through solar panels or a wind generator - to sell excess energy back to the national grid. This is paid through a fixed income for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated. The extra government funds could add up to £2.2 billion by 2015.

However, the government has made some cut-backs to its solar policies that have attracted criticisms from industry officials. Subsidies, for instance, have been reduced from 43p for every kilowatt hour of solar energy generated by households to 21p. According to Barker, this drop - due to take effect from April 2012 - is due to the rapidly decreasing cost of PV panels. Indeed, some research points out that the cost of solar panels has dropped by 45 per cent since 2009.

As the cost of buying and installing solar panels decreases, more local authorities in the UK are encouraging households to give it a go. Bristol city council, for example, recently published details on solar hotspots across the city. According to the February 2012 report, a third of all buildings in Bristol (around 80,000 buildings) have rooftops that are suitable for generating solar energy.

Yet the actual amount of sunlight received by the UK - low in comparison to southern parts of Europe - remains a concern for many households. As a result, the UK still lags behind some of its European neighbours in solar energy investment - particularly Germany, which has aggressively invested in solar energy generation in recent years. The USA and Japan have also spent billions on PV development, and China is considering a major solar investment too, as its total energy consumption continues to rise.

Sean Burke writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.