The United Kingdom solar industry has been around long enough now to see political cycles and government support come and go. Regardless of the shifting political sands, our eyes remain firmly fixed on the ultimate prize: delivering the clean energy transition as quickly and cost-effectively as possible – for climate and consumers.

Over the past year, the solar industry has continued to go from strength to strength, breaking installation records and delivering a fifth consecutive year of growth since the end of government subsidy support. However, we know that we still need to go faster if we’re to meet the government’s ambitious net-zero targets. The United Kingdom has committed to delivering up to 70 GW of solar power generation capacity by 2035 – the volume needed to achieve the government’s goal of having a decarbonised power system by the same date. That’s an almost fivefold increase from where we are today. Yet many new projects are already receiving grid connection dates beyond that deadline.

Companies such as RWE are also targeting major growth in solar. Some 40% of our planned €55 billion ($59 billion) net investment, by 2030, in growing the company’s green generation portfolio is to be focused on solar and onshore wind, with by far the biggest leap in growth to be in solar energy. We expect to step up from our current portfolio of 3.9 GW to 16 GW, globally, by the end of 2030.

There remain many hurdles that all developers are facing in the push to accelerate the net-zero transition; grid congestion and sluggish planning decisions being the most obvious. In the face of these challenges, no industry wants to become a political football, especially if that distracts from the imperative to go ever further and faster.

Despite the shift in tone in recent months, there has, thankfully, been more positive attention and cut-through than ever before on the fundamental challenges facing the industry. Only a couple of years ago we would never have imagined that a mention of tackling grid congestion would feature in major speeches by not only the prime minister but also the monarch.

Whilst welcome, these are as yet unproven at removing speculative projects from the queue and thus enabling those that are ready to progress to connect.

The queue, however, is only half the challenge. Connection delivery remains a major block as well. There are no binding requirements regarding connection delivery, as there are for connection offers, meaning projects are often given a connection date which languishes while a company waits for the necessary surveys and enabling work to take place. The result is real-world delays to hypothetical connection dates.

The addition of a net-zero remit for the energy regulator is another welcome change, though it is also, as yet, not known whether this will deliver the additional anticipatory build-out of grid capacity needed for the transition.

Similarly, there have been recent shakeups in planning rules from the government, alongside significant increases in fees. There is no guarantee, however, that these will result in accelerated decision making by local planning authorities as the fees are not ringfenced for planning as RWE and many others have recommended. Further reforms are also proposed to the process relating to nationally significant infrastructure projects and, on top of this, the Labour leadership has made known its desire to slash planning red tape across the piece.

There are certainly areas where planning can be right-sized for solar projects, such as reducing the inordinate amount of pre-application archaeological trenching required, for example. This is often unnecessary, disturbs far more ground than the actual construction of the solar farm, and can double the upfront fees for developers.