Government advisers yesterday called for 70,000 "solar roofs" to be installed on homes, factories and offices by 2010 to generate electricity from sunshine.
A Solar Task Force, set up soon after the election, said that unless the Government acted soon, Britain risked losing out to Japan, Germany and the US in winning a stake in one of the next century's fastest growing and biggest energy industries. The task force wants all electricity consumers to pay a small levy to subsidise the installation of solar cells in Britain, stimulating a UK industry. Electricity from these photovoltaic cells currently costs at least five times as much as that from conventional power stations, but the price is expected to fall quickly as mass production expands.
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