To those of us born in the mid twentieth century, it still sounds like the far future, but in fact it’s not far off. It’s an important date. It’s the date on which the world’s energy production is likely to undergo its biggest change since the invention of fire.

Despite the long-term savings which can be made by installing solar panels, investment in solar technologies is, in the short term, not nearly as economical as burning fossil fuels - at least not without taking into account the indirect cost of pollution. However solar trends indicate ever-increasing uptake which is reducing the real cost of solar energy by fifty percent every ten years.

It’s official: some of the damage done by global warming is now irreversible. The most severe consequences may take some time to affect us in the developed world, but poor countries like Bangladesh and Tuvalu, which lie close to sea level, are already losing significant amounts of land, leading to large scale human suffering.

Ironically, it is also poor countries who are among the greatest polluters, burning up fossil fuels as they rush to industrialise, with fewer resources to spend on long-term investments like using solar energy as alternative power. However, in some parts of the world, poor nations are still making an effort to use clean technologies wherever possible.

In our busy modern consumer society, shoppers often feel that they have too many choices. No longer able to make decisions based purely on quality and price, they’re increasingly inclined to look at the way businesses opposite and choose what they buy on that basis.

They’re concerned about fair trade, organic produce, and the air miles travelled by your products. A host of green issues influence their decisions. In this context, visibly going solar can significantly increase your market share.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to turn up the heating in winter without worrying about how much power you’re using? When you use solar energy to heat your home, you can keep it as warm as you like, and you won’t have to worry about damaging the environment, either.

Most people expect solar options to be useless in winter, but that’s really not the case. Modern solar panels are much more efficient than their predecessors and need only a few hours of sunlight per day to heat water for your home heating system. They’re still able to absorb ambient sunlight even on cloudy days.