North Star Solar To Supply Solar & Storage! Really?
An article that appeared in last week's Solar Power Portal and its associated report published by SPP on the 15th June makes for interesting reading. They relate to a potential Town Council deal whereby North Star Solar will supply optimised solar modules, inverters, Leclanche or Sonnen storage batteries and LED lighting at no cost, to all 22,000 households in the area. The payback for North Star will be in the up-takers signing into an electricity supply agreement.
Certainly, if North Star Solar manage to pull this off, through a 23 year fixed term price agreement (rising only with inflation linked to RPI "“ retail price index) then, this will indeed by as positive as the reports infer. However, if all the press hype doesn't come to fruition, the public perception of the UK solar industry is once again and negatively damaged through unrealistic and unrealised promises made.
It was interesting to note that where Solargain Limited now seem to be the installation partner of choice for North Star Solar, the installation partner that presented the North Star offer to Stanley Town Council on the 24th November 2015 was Norwich-based Absolute Renewable Energy, which unfortunately went into liquidation in February this year.
It should be noted that the trial of solar plus storage announced by North Star at the end of last year across 40 homes in London Boroughs, including Camden, was due to be installed and being monitored by 31st March 2016, with analysis results being available March 2017. Thus far, nothing has been installed and Camden Council told me last week that, "There have been supply chain issues and unfortunately the project is delayed for a number of reasons. We are working with the NEA to revise the project so that it can deliver successfully. We will release proper information about this once the project is back on track". The only official press release sanctioned for release by Camden and the project partners was from the NEA.
Lastly, and perhaps another story potentially as big if not bigger, also appeared in last week's press and this time globally but, largely missed by UK journals. It once again involved solar and battery storage and joint-managing director of North Star Solar, Stewart Dodd.
Dodd and Robert Suss (ex Goldman Sachs and one of their managing directors for 18 years and for the last part at least, as Head of Private Wealth) have recently incorporated a start-up company called Global Tower Solutions Limited (GTS). It appears that, through a joint venture with Tillman Green (a subsidiary of the Tillman Global Holdings). Tillman GTS plans to invest $500 million over the next three years by providing capital to the mobile telecom tower market. Its efforts will focus on diesel displacement market by leveraging its renewable energy and battery storage solutions.
Stewart Dodd is no stranger to free solar roll out plans with local authorities and he has attempted in the past to install solar on a roll out basis for Local Councils including Woking Borough and London Borough of Croydon through his company Engyco Limited - this on the back of an unrealized British Gas offer that was to be installed by Balfour Beatty. Unfortunately, this also failed to transpire.
Whilst these stories make good press and get the industry talking with hopes raised high, the industry must be positive that the promises made can be delivered. If not, the Great British public at large will see only negativity in the solar PV industry as a whole.
