Commenting on the Sunday Times YouGov public opinion poll [1] which showed huge support for solar power, STA Chairman Howard Johns said:

"Yesterday we delivered a petition to Number Ten from 17,000 people and over 200 important organisations concerned about the government's treatment of the UK solar power industry. Now we know three quarters of the public want to see more solar power.

That's not a surprise because everyday people get how empowering and exciting this technology is. Central government needs to catch up and take immediate steps to secure our industry. The public want to see more solar power, but politicians have signed off proposals to deliver a lot less."

The Poll showed that 74% of the public want more solar power. Support varied with voting intention: 88% Lib Dem, 75% Labour and 69% Conservative. There was little variation in the strong support for solar power by age, gender or class.

67% of people said that solar was a realistic way of combating climate change. This is consistent with the views of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), who have both stated that solar will be the biggest power source in the world in future in 50 years. Solar is the UK's second biggest renewable resource and can technically meet UK electricity demand twice over. Domestic solar now attracts the same FIT support as river hydro and less than mini wind. Non-domestic solar requires less support than anaerobic digestion (AD).