- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 11 1999 01.23 BST
It is tempting to think that the policy wonks, civil servants, ministers and corporate chiefs who determine our power supplies will this morning, weather permitting, stare into the sky, see a great light and glimpse that the future is big, bright and yellow. Thanks to technological advances in photo-voltaics, the potential for solar energy to generate electricity even in cloud-covered islands is almost unlimited and no longer depends on bright sunshine. But while the US, Germany, Japan and others are well on the way to converting more than five million homes and premises into non-polluting mini-power stations in the next 10 years, we have committed ourselves to just 100 houses and a few schools.
For this full eclipse of the imagination, we must thank the department of trade and industry and the treasury, arguably the two most powerful but most regressive departments. The former has long been blinded by oil and nuclear power, the latter by immediate cost concerns. Together, they have ensured that there will be no advantage for renewables in the proposed energy tax, that little public money goes to solar, and that people wanting to generate their own power are heavily penalised. Despite the government's foresight energy panel identifying photo-voltaics as a 21st-century UK money-spinner, solar must pay its way in a rigged market where polluting power industries are subsidised to the tune of several billion pounds a year. This is wrong. We are being left out of a rapidly growing global solar market expected to be worth £11bn a year in a decade. The race is on to develop socially and environmentally acceptable power for the next century. The oil majors have correctly begun to invest in photo-voltaics and are gearing up for production. How much longer must we wait before a technology-obsessed government accepts that solar power is cool and popular, and that Mr Blair could one day conceivably crown himself Sun King of Europe?
Live coverage of the eclipse, plus photos and a chance to share your experiences
