The strategy – launched by energy minister and long-time solar ally Greg Barker – explicitly signalled a desire to “move the emphasis for growth away from large solar farms” and instead “target the UK’s estimated 250,000 hectares of south facing commercial rooftops”.

Barker said schools, hospitals and defence sites would be enlisted into the drive – which he hopes will be joined by the UK’s private sector – and explicitly made that market, along with the domestic PV sector, the lynchpins of his ambitions.

Barker