Solar league table: Britain’s top solar-powered constituencies revealed

Andrew Lansley is top of the class, Justine Greening is bottom, and Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey is lagging behind in a new 'league table' and interactive map of constituencies and solar power.


The table, devised by environmental charity Friends of the Earth, ranks 32 cabinet members according to the number of solar installations in their constituency. (Scroll down for interactive map).

Conservative MP Lansley rules the school with 3108 solar installations within his constituency of Cambridgeshire South, while Prime Minister David Cameron takes second place with 2143 installations in Witney.

Greening’s constituency of Putney lies at the bottom of the table, with just 114 solar installations. Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Davey is labelled a ‘must try harder’ with just 252 installations in his constituency of Kingston & Surbiton putting him in third-from-last place.

Lagging behind

Friends of the Earth’s executive director Andy Atkins said: “Most of the cabinet should be in detention – they’re lagging embarrassingly far behind Andrew Lansley when it comes to locally-installed solar power.

“While the number of solar installations varies considerably between constituencies, most cabinet members have done little to help households, schools and businesses to reap the benefits of solar power – too many are stuck on outdated forms of energy, like shale gas.

“We urgently need to roll out clean energy across all of our towns and neighbourhoods – every MP should get behind the idea of making it easier for schools to run on sun, and boost their ranking in our solar league table.”

Interactive Map: UK solar league table

View UK solar league table in a larger map

The new rankings come ahead of the longest and lightest day of the year – Saturday, 21 June – which is potentially the best day for solar panels.

Table: Top 32 solar-powered constituencies

Earlier this month, Eric Pickles – who’s Brentwood & Ongar constituency ranks 24th on the list – was accused of ‘picking on the solar sector’, for overseeing the dismissal of two major solar projects in Suffolk.

The Government itself has been accused of having ‘an unjustified bias against solar and decentralised energy’ after revealing controversial plans to cut financial support for solar farms back in May.

Luke Nicholls

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