Solar Panel Installers in UK

As the UK No.1 Quote Comparison Site for solar panels and solar batteries installer, Get a free quotes today to save up to 70% on energy bills, The technology behind solar energy is complex to understand for those of us who aren’t into solar industry. We would try to explain the whole process in simple terms. We all know sun emits heat and light. This light is made up of small particles called photons. Every solar panel uk cost is essentially a magnetized sheet containing densely packed atoms.

The Bright Solar Future of Renewable Energy in the UK

Solar energy has the potential to revolutionize the way we live our daily lives. As the world continues to shift towards renewable energy, solar power is becoming increasingly popular and accessible for everyday use. Here are some of the ways that solar energy is sure to shape our daily lives in the future –

Residential Solar Power : Solar panels installed on rooftops have already become increasingly popular in residential areas, allowing homeowners to generate their own clean energy and save on their energy bills. In the future, it is expected that residential solar power systems will become even more affordable and efficient, allowing more households to switch to renewable energy uk .

Electric Vehicles : With the rise of electric vehicles, solar power will play a significant role in charging these vehicles. Solar - powered charging stations will become more widespread, providing an eco - friendly and cost - effective way to charge electric vehicles.

Portable Solar Chargers : Portable solar chargers for electronic devices are already on the market, but as solar technology advances, these chargers will become more efficient and affordable. This will allow people to charge their electronic devices using solar power when they're on the go, without needing access to a power outlet.

Solar - Powered Appliances : In the future, we can expect to see more appliances and devices at home that are powered by solar energy, such as solar - powered air conditioning systems and water heaters.

Community Solar Projects : Community solar projects are already becoming more popular, allowing communities to pool resources to invest in solar power systems. In the future, these projects are expected to become even more prevalent, allowing more people to access the benefits of solar energy.

Solar - Powered Agriculture: In the agricultural sector, solar power can be used to power irrigation systems and provide energy for farm operations. This can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the agriculture industry and make it more sustainable.

In conclusion, solar energy will have a significant impact on our daily lives in the future. From solar panels for homes and appliances, to solar systems for small shops, solar power is set to revolutionize the way we live. As solar technology continues to advance, we can expect to see more innovative uses for solar energy, making it an even more vital part of our daily lives in the near future. For more information, please visit: https://solar-futures.com/

When you have a leak or need a whole roof replacement, Abernathy Roofing and Solar can help you fix this problem with the best professional. We have Top quality installers and managers to ensure your project is completed at the highest quality standards. View this infographic to know more and visit the website here

Solar Panels: How to Choose the Right One for Your Home

#SolarPanels: How to Choose the Right One for Your #Home

In the UK, there has been a dramatic increase in households installing solar panels. This is partly due to government subsidies and incentives that have made solar panels more affordable than ever. But, it’s important to note that not everyone will be able to enjoy these subsidies. For example, some people may not be able to afford their panel installation or might not have enough space for one…

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Millions of solar panels are piling up in warehouses across the Continent because of a manufacturing battle in China, where cut-throat competition has driven the world’s biggest panel-makers to expand production far faster than they can be installed.

The supply glut has caused solar panel prices to halve. This sounds like great news for the EU, which recently pledged to triple its solar power capacity to 672 gigawatts by 2030. That’s roughly equivalent to 200 large nuclear power stations.

In reality, though, it has caused a crisis. Under the EU’s “Green Deal Industrial Plan”, 40pc of the panels to be spread across European fields and roofs were meant to be made by European manufacturers.

However, the influx of cheap Chinese alternatives means that instead of tooling up, manufacturers are pulling out of the market or becoming insolvent. Last year 97pc of the solar panels installed across Europe came from China.[...]

The best estimates suggest that about 90 gigawatts worth of solar panels are stashed around Europe. That solar power capacity roughly equates to 25 large nuclear power stations the size of Hinkley Point C.[...]

The sheer scale of the problem was revealed in a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

It warned that although the world was installing at record rates of around 400 gigawatts a year, manufacturing capacity was growing far faster.

By the end of this year solar panel factories, mostly in China, will be capable of churning out 1,100 gigawatts a year – nearly three times more than the world is ready [sic] for. For comparison, that’s about 11 times [!!!!] the UK’s entire generating capacity.

For some solar power installers, it’s a dream come true. Sagar Adani is building solar farms across India’s deserts, with 54 in operation and another 12 being built.

His company, Adani Green Energy, is constructing one solar farm so large that it will cover an area five times the size of Paris and have a capacity of 30 gigawatts – equal to a third of the UK’s entire generating capacity.

“I am installing tens of millions of solar panels across these projects,” says Adani. “Almost all of them will have been imported from China. There is nowhere else that can supply them in such numbers or at such prices.

“China saw the opportunity before others, it looked forward to what the world is going to set up 10 years on. And because they scaled up in the way they did, they were able to reduce costs substantially as well.”

That scaling up meant the capital cost of installing solar power fell from around £1.25m per megawatt of generating capacity in 2015 to around £600,000 today – a decrease of more than 50pc – making it cheaper than almost any other form of generation, including wind.[...]

“Up to 2012 there was a healthy looking European solar panel industry but it was actually very reliant on subsidies and preferential treatment.

“But then European governments and other customers started buying from China because their products were so much cheaper. And China still has cheap labour and cheap energy plus a massive domestic market. It’s hard to see Europe recovering from those disadvantages.”

Trying sososo hard to make this sound like a bad thing [23 Mar 24]

BREAKING NEWS -

THE PRINCE OF WALES'S SOCIAL HOUSING PROJECT!

The Prince of Wales will build a £3m social housing development on his own land to tackle homelessness, delivering on his pledge in my interview with him last year that he would "absolutely" put social housing on the Duchy of Cornwall estate.

The development in Nansledan, a suburb of Newquay, the Cornish seaside town famous for its surfing, will include a mix of four-bedroom houses and one-bedroom flats.

The duchy, will supply the land for the project free of charge and cover all construction costs. It will also invest in local infrastructure, including a bus link and connections to electricity, water and superfast broadband.

The new low-carbon homes will feature slate roofs, granite lintels, solar panels, heat pumps and colourful timber windows. It will be built in a “traditional Cornish seaside” style, designed by Adam Architecture and local firm ALA Architects.

Prince William, who launched Homewards UK last year, is looking at more projects on his land. He wants other landowners to follow suit and build more social housing. William is also working with St Petrocs to offer residents “wraparound” support services in addition to housing.

Kensington Palace said: “The prince is delighted that the duchy is using the Homewards approach as inspiration for building this innovative housing project, partnering with St Petrocs to find ways of ultimately getting people into permanent housing.

“It is exactly what he wants to do and for him it’s another example that if we can show people here and in other countries what is possible, maybe others will follow our lead. The prince hopes that every town and city in the country will take inspiration from this project.”

https://archive.ph/2024.02.17-182818/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/prince-william-land-social-homes-project-royal-family-vtv7x6vjc

First research flight images from innovative balloon-borne telescope Astronomers have successfully launched a balloon-borne telescope which has begun capturing images of the Universe on its first research flight. The super pressure balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) was flown to the edge of space by a helium-filled NASA scientific balloon the size of a football stadium where it will help researchers investigate the mystery of dark matter. SuperBIT has already taken its first images on this flight, showing the "Tarantula Nebula” - a neighbourhood of the Large Magellanic Cloud where new stars are being born, and the collision between the “Antennae galaxies” NGC 4038 and NGC 4039. SuperBIT is a collaboration between Durham University, UK, the University of Toronto, Canada, Princeton University, USA, and NASA. It launched from Wānaka, New Zealand (Aotearoa) earlier this week, following a two-year delay due to the Covid pandemic. Carried by seasonally stable winds for about three months, it will circumnavigate the southern hemisphere several times - imaging the sky all night, then using solar panels to recharge its batteries during the day. SuperBIT flies at 33.5km altitude, above 99.5 per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere. It takes high-resolution images like those of the Hubble Space Telescope, but with a wider field of view. The science goal for this first flight is to measure the properties of dark matter, a heavy but invisible type of material. Dark matter is all around us but poorly understood. SuperBIT will test whether dark matter particles can bounce off each other, by mapping the dark matter around clusters of galaxies that are colliding with neighbouring galaxy clusters. Various theories about dark matter suggest that, during a collision, some dark matter might either slow down, spread out, or get chipped off. The researchers say that if they can map dark matter leaving the collision, they could finally start to learn what it is made of. Professor Richard Massey, of Durham University’s Department of Physics, said: “It takes the gravity from an entire galaxy to move dark matter and SuperBIT will look at clusters of galaxies that happen to be colliding with each other. “Essentially, we’re using the largest particle accelerators in the Universe, to smash lumps of dark matter and see where the bits fly. “If dark matter goes ‘crunch’, or if bits are chipped off, we could finally start to learn what it’s made of.” Although dark matter is invisible, SuperBIT will map where it is by the way it bends passing rays of light, a technique known as gravitational lensing. While telescopes on the ground have to squint through the Earth’s atmosphere – meaning their view can become blurred - space-based telescopes get a clear view of the light that has travelled billions of years from the distant universe. SuperBIT is the first ever balloon-borne telescope capable of taking wide-field images with resolution limited only by the laws of optics. During its final test flight in 2019, SuperBIT demonstrated extraordinary pointing stability, with variation of less than one thirty-six thousandth of a degree for more than an hour. SuperBIT cost about $5million/£4.1million, almost 1,000 times less than an equivalent satellite. Not only is helium cheaper than rocket fuel, but the ability of SuperBIT to return to Earth via parachute meant the team could tweak its design over several test flights. Reusable spacecraft can also be reconfigured and upgraded. For example, the development team buy a new camera shortly before each launch, because modern detectors are improving so rapidly. Using cutting-edge technology has kept SuperBIT young. The team already has funding to upgrade SuperBIT’s 0.5 metre aperture telescope to 1.6 metres, which would boost light gathering power tenfold, with a wider-angle lens and more megapixels. The relatively cheap cost may even make it possible for a fleet of space telescopes to offer time to astronomers around the world. TOP IMAGE....A false-colour image taken by the SuperBIT telescope soon after launch in visible and ultra-violet light of the "Tarantula Nebula” - a neighbourhood of the Large Magellanic Cloud where new stars are being born. CREDIT SuperBIT CENTRE IMAGE....A false-colour image taken by the SuperBIT telescope soon after launch in visible and ultra-violet light of a pair of galaxies smashing into each other. As they collide, the “Antennae galaxies” NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 are ripping strips off each other and opening themselves for inspection. CREDIT SuperBIT LOWER IMAGE....The SuperBIT telescope nestled among its solar panels and communications antennae. Picked up at dawn, ready to be carried to the launch pad beside the runway at Wānaka airport. CREDIT Richard Massey.

That will take some doing. Covid vaccines could be developed so quickly because of years of research on the Mers and Sars viruses. To prepare for the next onslaught we must compile inventories of potentially dangerous strains and tighten global surveillance. We can try to predict which pathogens are most likely to provoke zoonotic mutation. Above all, we can start work now on the early stages of vaccine development for the dangerous diseases we already know. Of course, this will cost money. But compared with other major investments, scientific breakthroughs come cheap. To push at least one vaccine against the 11 epidemic infectious diseases to phase 2 trials has been costed at less than $8.5bn. In her book Disease X, the science writer Kate Kelland estimates that $50bn would pay for a comprehensive vaccine library. To expect that funding to come from the private sector is unrealistic. The work is too expensive and high risk and the returns too uncertain. Philanthropy and public-private partnerships may work. But ultimately it is governments that should foot the bill. Unfortunately, in public policy, pandemic preparedness is all too often relegated to the cash-starved budgets of development agencies or squeezed into strained health budgets. Where such spending properly belongs is under the flag of industrial policy and national security. Biotech is one of the most promising areas of future economic growth, combining research, high-tech manufacturing and service sector work. As the IMF declared: “vaccine policy is economic policy.” And pandemic preparedness belongs under national security because there is no more serious threat to a population. A far larger percentage of the UK died of Covid between 2020 and 2023 (225,000 out of 67mn) than were killed by German bombs in the second world war (70,000 out of 50mn).

Long been my crank opinion that if we want to "reindustrialize" to restore competitiveness with China that biotech would be a good way to do it, going to take China a while to lose the reputation for being the maker of knock-off products and adulterated food, you can deal with that if you want to sell cheap steel or solar panels but for pharma it's more of an issue.

At the start of February, Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, announced a major scaling back of its operations, exiting wind markets in Portugal, Spain and Norway and cutting both its dividend and its 2030 target for the number of new installations. The announcement followed the firm’s shock decision last November to back out of two major wind projects in New Jersey. Last week, it agreed to sell stakes in four US onshore wind farms for around $300m.

But Ørsted’s troubles are hardly unique. In September 2023, the UK government’s offshore wind auction failed to secure a single project from developers, who argued that the government-guaranteed prices on offer were too low in the face of rising costs. Two months before that, Vattenfall pulled out of a major wind UK development for the same reason. And in February, the German energy giant RWE – which provides 15 per cent of the UK’s power – warned that without more money on offer, the UK’s next auction, opening this month, might just fail again.

These cases are only a handful among many and have come as jarring setbacks for an industry grown accustomed to triumphalism: headlines over recent years have routinely celebrated the plunging cost of renewables and the seemingly unrelenting transition to clean energy advancing around the world. A quick Google of “renewable energy deployment” yields no shortage of charts with impressive upward slopes.

Much of this enthusiasm has centred on a metric called the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE), which represents the average cost per unit of electricity generated over the lifetime of a generator, be it a wind farm or a gas power station. The LCOE has something of a cult status among industry analysts, journalists and even the International Energy Agency as the definitive marker of the transition to clean energy. When the LCOE of renewables falls below that of traditional fossil fuel sources, the logic goes, the transition to clean energy will be unstoppable. If only it was that simple, argues the economic geographer Brett Christophers in his latest book The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet.

As Christophers writes: “Everyone, seemingly, has gravitated to the view that, now they are cheaper/cheapest, renewables are primed for an unprecedented golden growth era” that will see them supplant fossil fuels. Doing so will be no mean feat. Despite the vertiginous growth of new renewable capacity in recent years, renewables have scarcely made a dent in the proportion of global power that comes from fossil fuels. The overall share of fossil fuel power in the energy mix has remained broadly stagnant for an astonishing four decades, from 64 per cent in 1985 to 61 per cent in 2022. Critically, the absolute amount of fossil fuel power generated each year – the figure that ultimately matters for the climate – has continued to rise.

In large part, this stems from overall growth in electricity consumption, which will continue apace in the coming decades as millions around the world gain access to electricity and as we race to electrify the economy. Thus, for all their upward momentum, global electricity consumption is still growing faster than solar and wind power is coming online, meaning the gap is widening. To close it, by the IEA’s estimates, the world needs to install 600 GW (gigawatts) of solar and 340 GW of wind capacity every year between 2030 and 2050. By comparison, the UK’s current total installed wind capacity is approximately 30GW, the sixth largest in the world, while Germany’s domestic transition plan implies installing the equivalent of 43 football pitches of solar panels every day to 2050. In short: the task is immense – almost unimaginably so. It is similarly urgent.

Where will the momentum needed to build this clean energy future come from? As Christophers documents in detail, the industry has thus far relied on an array of subsidy and support around the world. Extensive state support is hardly unique to clean energy, much as detractors and climate deniers may like to highlight it: the fossil fuel industry benefited from tax breaks and direct subsidy to the tune of £5.5trn in 2022 according to the IMF. The declining LCOE of renewable energy has been increasingly viewed as an argument for unwinding this government-backed support. As Christophers shows, however, in practice this has proven a near-impossibility. The question he therefore asks is why, in the face of declining costs, subsidies continue to be necessary, and what this tells us about whether the current approach to decarbonisation is fit for purpose.

The answer, Christophers argues, is that we’ve got it all upside down. When it comes to investment in renewable energy, as in anything else, it’s not cheapness that matters. Just take it from the investors themselves, he notes, citing one former JPMorgan investor who described the LCOE as a “practical irrelevance”. What matters instead is profit, and expectations of it.

Despite its simplicity, Christophers’s account is a quietly radical one that contravenes the received wisdom of not only the technocrats, mainstream economists and free marketeers who tout the wonders of the market, but also many on the left, for whom the problem with profits is typically their being far too high. Instead, as he demonstrates, the trouble is that renewable energy is nowhere near profitable enough, and certainly not reliably so, for the market to deliver it with anything like the pace, scale or certainty that is needed.

If the costs of renewables are indeed so low, one might ask, and profits are equal to revenues minus costs, then surely plunging costs should mean higher profits. But Christophers shows that low and unreliable profits are the definitive obstacle to the decarbonisation of the electricity system and, by extension, the wider economy.

The precise answer as to why low costs don’t necessarily translate into high and steady profits in this sector is technically complex and multifaceted, deftly handled by Christophers, a reformed management consultant, over nearly 400 pages of fine detail drawn from company documents, interviews and dense sectoral reports from global energy agencies. Put simply, the core of the problem is that the very features of markets so celebrated by mainstream economics – mediation via the price signal, increasing competition and private investment – are the undoing of a private-sector led transition to clean energy.

For Christophers, the commitment to marketisation in electricity systems is increasingly self-defeating. At the heart of this problem is the so-called “wholesale market” that prevails in many parts of the US and Europe, including the UK. Under this system, generators are paid a single price per unit of electricity for a given period, regardless of whether it is derived from a wind turbine or a coal plant. This price is based on what’s called a “merit order”, with the cheapest sources – generally renewables – being deployed first, followed by as many sources as are needed in order of escalating price. The wholesale is set by the last unit of energy needed to meet demand. In the UK, this is typically gas.

The defining feature of this wholesale pricing system, cast in sharp relief over the period of sky-high energy prices in 2021-2022, is volatility. With a host of factors potentially feeding into the price – from the balance of supply and demand through to global gas prices and geographic location – the swings can be enormous, regularly spiking from double to triple digit prices and back again within a matter of hours. In times of crisis, the figures can become outlandish, with the price of electricity in Texas during the state’s 2021 shock winter storms reaching $9,000 per MWh.

For Christophers, this volatility is nothing short of “an existential threat” to the “bankability” of a renewable project – that is, its ability to secure financing – because it makes profitability so uncertain. Worse still, within a competitive wholesale market, as the proportion of renewable generation in the market grows, and by extension the proportion of time in which renewables drive the wholesale price, the more frequently and strongly prices swing to the lower extreme, a phenomenon known as “price cannibalisation”.

The energy industry and governments rely on an impressive array of methods to circumvent these problems, from financial hedging to feed-in-tariffs, and from mega corporate Power Purchase Agreements with the likes of Amazon and Google to the UK’s “contracts-for-difference”. As Christophers writes: the reality of “liberalised electricity systems such as Europe’s is that, to secure financing, renewables developers ordinarily do everything they can… to avoid selling their output at the market price.”

Thus, despite ultra-high wholesale prices over 2021-2022, many renewables generators failed to enjoy correspondingly high profits, because they had traded the possibility of these certainties in the face of intolerable market volatility. For Christophers, this is the “signal feature” of the liberalised electricity market: that “the hallowed market price… is the one price that renewables operators endeavour not to sell at.”

It is in explaining this apparent contradiction that the book offers its most radical suggestion. Borrowing Karl Polanyi’s concept of a “fictitious commodity”, Christophers ultimately contends that electricity – like land, labour and money, Polanyi’s original trio – is not a commodity in the conventional sense of having been created for sale, and is therefore ill-suited to market exchange and coordination. This incompatibility sits at the root of the spiralling complexity of interventions that policymakers are obligated to make in the name of upholding the freedom of the “market”. The result, in the words of the energy expert Meredith Angwin, is that today’s electricity markets are less market and more “bureaucratic thicket”.

Thankfully, if the forces of capitalism, defined in terms of private ownership and the profit imperative, are fundamentally ill-equipped for this task, then we are not for want of alternatives. Public ownership and financing of energy, if freed from a faux market and the straitjacket of the profit motive, seems an obvious one. Christophers writes that the state is the only actor with “both the financial wherewithal and the logistical and administrative capacity” to take on the challenge of decarbonisation. The trouble though, when all you have is a hammer, is that everything looks like a nail. Thus, in the face of irreconcilable market failures, most policymakers seem only to offer more market-based fudges.

In this context, the tremors in renewable energy investment that we have seen with increasing frequency over the past several months are more than just a blip. They represent a potentially fatal flaw in the prevailing approach to the task of decarbonisation. From the perspective of the climate, every tonne of carbon matters, and every delay is significant. To continue to leave the future of electricity, and by extension global decarbonisation, to the whims of profit-motivated firms, is an intolerable risk. Rome is already burning, and there’s no time left to fiddle.

2023 wrapped

Let's try to sum up the year.

First, the TLDR: a long, drawn out groan of "fuck".

Second, what actually happened.

Remember that blog from a while back where I had six goals and if I did them all then I'd customise my mechanical keyboard? That didn't really work out. The treadmill I bought was a bit of a lemon and had to be sent back. It was one of those machines that's not really built to be used, it's designed to sit in a corner and have the owner look at it and say "I should use that sometime", but they never do. It's documentation all pointed to it breaking down pretty quickly with the amount of use I'd put it through. Not in the documentation was that it switched itself off after 40 minutes without warning. Based on that, I sent it back and got a refund, minus the shipping cost because the refund label I was given wasn't enough for the damn thing's weight. Oh well.

The writing didn't go so well either. Stress ground that to a halt. Two things happened to spread that over the year.

First, I got solar panels installed on my roof. That's a good thing. They're cool and they've cut my energy bill down a lot. But to put the panels in I needed scaffolding in place. It couldn't be put up and put down on the day of installation because a) different companies handled the panels and the scaffolding, and b) in case something went wrong. In my case something minor did go wrong. One of the installers got lazy and instead of securing the main power cable to my outside wall, he zip tied it to guttering downpipe. As I explained on the phone when I complained, this makes a mess of liabilities if I ever need work done on that pipe. Fortunately, a couple of guys came out to fix the cable problem. But no one came to pick up the scaffolding... for three months.

Remember I mentioned that different companies handled the panels and the scaffolding? Well, I could only talk to the panel company as they hired the scaffolding company. It took a lot of phone calls, emails and Official Complaints to find out what happened. The scaffolding company ran into financial trouble and didn't tell anyone for a while. To keep the money coming in they kept installing scaffolding in properties and didn't bother collecting any. They had scaffolding to spare and knew that no one would dare/be able to take down the stuff left behind. Eventually, once the panel company found out what was happening they got the scaffolding company to start coming out and collecting again.

The reason this was a big problem was the scaffolding shut off access to a few things. Two of my windows, and my neighbour's garage. It's a bit of a pain trying to explain all the problems with the scaffolding company hired by the panel company over a text message. But... one day they finally showed and took it away. Stress over. Except.

Except, that day, the very same day, there's an all-hands meeting with work. Everyone tunes into the conference call to hear the news. The company's in trouble. Layoffs in the US office, redundancies in the UK office. The layoffs had already happened by the time of the meeting, the redundancies would be announced after call. When the call ended, I decided to give it ten minutes before declaring myself safe. I got the notification at about the seven minute mark. It was, indeed, fuck.

So, in the US they did layoffs. You're called in, you're told, you leave. No argument, no appeal. In the UK we do redundancies. That's a process about a month long where people are 'at risk' of redundancy and no one is officially fired until the end. For some, there are groups who have the same or similar titles, and the high ups have to decide who in the group to get rid of. For others, like me, you're a one of one, and you'll be gone, unless you can convince them to keep you on. This isn't even the shitty 'interview for the job you're already doing', it's argue that your job should even exist. In my case, the documentation about the redundancy said the plan was that my duties as proofreader would be split up between the writers. Mood: Pickard face palm.

So, got that news. That night I ordered a big box of grease in the form of a pizza for dinner and ate it all while feeling sad. The next day, I got to work. The amount of people at risk of redundancy in the company was so big that there were too many for the HR people to speak to, so we were split into sub-groups based on departments, and those groups would need reperesentatives to come to meetings with HR and then dissiminate the information back to their group. I volunteered to be a rep at is a) meant I was getting all of the information and b) meant I could channel all of anxiety about the process into being a control freak. I made spreadsheets, I kept masses of notes, I wrote up every single meeting. Half the questions I asked in the meetings I had come up with rather than people in my group.

About a quarter way through the redundancy process time frame, I got a meeting with HR to make my pitch. It was really pretty simple: You Need Me. The writers make mistakes, in grammar, in spelling, in simple facts. They don't have the time to research things properly so just it wrong sometimes, and asking another writer to check it won't work out because they won't have the time either. But, I needed some carrot with the stick so offered a solution. My utilisation was down, so I could go on part time hours for a while until things pick up again. They were receptive in the meeting, and asked for a written pitch. I wrote it, read it over, edited it, read it again, then sent it. They accepted. My job was saved, well half saved.

It was a good thing too, as my backup plan feel through. Just before the redundancy process had started, I interviewed at a science journal to do proofreading there. Say what you will about the business model of journals (it's all a bit predatory), but it would have been a big step up from marketing. It was really nice to be taken seriously as a contender for the role, but in the end they decided to go with someone who had basically done the same job at another journal before.

Back to the job stress. I had a half a job. Better than zero job, but still. Finances were tight. I had just enough to pay my bills each month, but that was it. I was not going on holiday or even replacing that crappy treadmill. I got very lucky with the situation. If I hadn't gotten the raise in January the cut to my pay wouldn't have been viable at all. I didn't mention the raise. Man, this is all over the shot, isn't it? Short version: company introduced system to get promotions for most roles, left me (and some other unique jobs) out. So I wrote my own job description for the promotion system in specific way so that they would have to promote me. I gave them plenty of chances to stop me. And the promotion went through in January with a nice raise. And then in May that raised pay was cut in half.

Being on part time isn't all it's cracked up to me. What do you do with all that spare time? Well, you stress out that the rest of the job will be taken away from you, that's what. I played a lot of video games, watched most of the MCU and watched most of Star Wars. The only thing from the MCU I haven't seen is Ms Marvel, I watched every other movie and show. I watched all of Star Wars except the Resistance show set around Episode 7. Only people who have seen all seven seasons of Clone Wars, all four seasons of Rebels, The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett understand what's going in Ahsoka. It's like a soap twenty years long and suddenly plot threads from the entire run are all coming together.

Amongst all the TV watching, I gardened my garden. When I bought my house, there was decking in the back garden. But I quickly discovered that the decking was no good, it was rotting. Far too gone to Ship of Theseus it, I tore it all out, dug out the posts, lifted the gravel that was underneath the decking, lifted the second layer of gravel that was under the first, broke up some random paving stones that were in the corner, and cleared the whole area down to the mud. That took months of work. I filled my car three times with wood for disposing of and filled a four-tonne skip with the gravel and rocks. After the garden was clear, I got fresh gravel and membrane and covered it all over.

When November came around, I did NaNoWriMo again. I wasn't aiming for the full 50k though. It had been months since I'd tried writing and really I didn't have enough story to need that many words. So I went for writing every day. Late in the month I got sick, my first cold in four years. That knocked me pretty hard, so there was one day where I only managed 98 words. But I did manage to write every day, and a couple days into December I finished the first draft of the book I've been working on since 2019. It's gotten away from me a bit, it's 322,000 words long. I may try to cut it down to one big epic novel, or I may keep the length but split it out into a series of novellas. We'll see how editing goes.

That brings us to about now. Christmas is soon, and for the first time we're skipping presents. I'm actually relieved, I had no idea what to get anyone. Last day of work is tomorrow, then it's Christmas break.

This year has been stressfull. I'm seeing more grey hairs in the mirror than before. But it could have been a lot worse.

2024 is actually looking up. Going to do an editing pass of the mammoth novel, got a plan to do it in 100 days. Through a confluence of events, including metaphorically finding bodies stuffed in a cupboard, I'm going to be back at full time at work, so money will be okay again. I've got a plan to keep myself organised for the year, it involves a whiteboard and a physical diary. I'll do another blog later to explain that.

“Finally, the tables are starting to turn.” - Tracy Chapman

Liz Truss: We need to combat the important issues affecting the UK.

Me: So that's the cost of living crisis, the benefits system, trans rights, white supremacy, energy crisis, supply issues, public transport, the entire education system, the climate crisis-

Liz Truss, and also apparently Rishi too cause why not: -solar panels in fields.

Me: ...

It Begins...

"I've applied for a school in the Falklands", Sara tells me. ".... Huh!? Oh? Right... OK", this comes as a bit of a shock to me, we've previously spoken about the possibility of us returning back up north, where the quality of life is better than where we currently are, just outside of 2023's Worst Place To Live, Luton, and where the cost of living is significantly cheaper, but at the same time, I was also somewhat unsurprised, Sara has always had itchy feet (I'm talking about a desire to travel, not a long undiagnosed skin condition) and was ready for a new school to teach at.

We'd previously visited an island with a small population for her to attend an interview weekend, where partners were also invited, and please, do read the next bit in air-quotes, with as much sarcasm as you can muster, "but partners aren't being interviewed, just invited so they can get a feel for the island", sure Jan... and just days before the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown measures were introduced in the UK, we visited the tiny island of Sark in the Channel Islands.

Not only is Sark a tiny island, it also has a tiny population of about 500 people, where people are outnumbered by the sheep, and the coastline is frequented by funny looking black and white birds (just remember this information for later) as puffins can be spotted on the sheer coastal edges of the island in Spring.

During our time on Sark, when Sara wasn't preparing a lesson to give to her potential future class, we went up and down their bustling high street, avoiding the local traffic of tractors, horse and carts and bicycles...there are no cars allowed on Sark (despite how much my friend Victoria keeps suggesting that if you squint, you could mistake a sports car for a small tractor), not that you would need a car given the size of the island! We also had a lovely curry at the seigneur's home with the other candidates, headteacher of the school and his wife, and a few local residents, including the locum GP, who I may have landed in hot water when I was "absolutely not being interviewed" by the island's vicar and his wife.

The current seigneur of Sark is the delightful Christopher Beaumont, the 23rd person to take up the mantle, a former officer in the British Army, but despite his highfalutin sounding status is down to earth, and happy to chat away with visitors to his beautiful gardens, especially about his newly installed solar panels and electric tractor (the first of it's kind on Sark!)

Sadly, it wasn't to be for our dream of a few quiet years on Sark, and we returned to empty streets, loo roll shortages and queues outside supermarkets, as we took our singular government approved walk of the day. Life moved on, just day after day after sodding day. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same.

There were other attempts to move to Sark, the teacher who did get the job decided it wasn't for them and returned to mainland UK. I guess choosing small island life requires a certain kind of hardiness, pig headedness and a desire to be part of a small community who will know everything about you after a certain amount of time. We have those qualities (we hope), but again, the job was offered to another applicant.

So after a couple of attempts of moving to one small island, and it not being successful, I pessimistically assumed it would be the same here, Sara would go for the interview, impress the panel, but there would just be that one sodding person with a smidge more experience, who would get the job and leave us stuck on rainy Brexit island.

The big day came, Sara set off to London for the interview, you see, whilst for Sark they flew us to Guernsey and then put us on the cute little ferry to the small island, the Falklands is a 16 hour flight across the Atlantic, and a bit far to go for an interview, so the interview panel came to the UK, at Falkland House, the Falkland Islands London address, where you can visit to discuss all manner of things, so long as those questions are about the Falkland Islands. Of course, things didn't go smoothly, as her tube decided to stop in the middle of a tunnel between stations, unable to contact the office to say she was delayed as this was a line that did not yet have 4G signal installed throughout, but she did make her interview in the nick of time, and on exit was told she'd hear back within a week.

At this point my pessimism had kicked in. They had clearly given the job to someone else, and we were doomed for another year in the London commuter belt. Another year of eating fish fingers whilst watching Pointless. Another year of breathing in the polluted air from the main road we lived next to. Another year of...

"ring ring¹"... Sara's phone is ringing, it's a +500 number from The Falkland Islands... I listen in...

"Hi, is that Sara?", asks the caller, she confirms, and the voice on the other end replies, "Sorry about the delay in getting back to you, when we arrived we needed to have a week to rest from the exhaustion of flying and to have a think about the candidates we saw. We were really impressed with your"... I could sense the "but", again, I'm a pessimist by nature... "and we'd like to offer you the position of class teacher at the Infant and Junior School starting in September" - for once, my natural glass half empty, cheery outlook on life, was unfounded.

I went to Tesco to get cake to celebrate the news, although the choices were rubbish and I came back with mini Millionaires Shortbread bites rather than actual cake, but now we had to let it sink in that we were going to have a very big journey ahead of us.

What follows is that journey²...

¹it didn't actually go "ring ring", we're millennials and as such our phones are permanently on mute, and just went "vvvvvvb vvvvvvb" but that would have looked like a cat walked across my keyboard if I'd put that.

²It's worth noting up to now, this has mostly been about Sara's journey, but from hereon this will be a shared journey

(ventilation life hack anon) i hear you! no sweat.

i have another option but itll cost a pretty penny.

you can get some small solar panels (about 15 inches [side note: this is how you know im american]) about 4 of them will work out. slap them in your window and they can hook up to an emergency battery. those big fancy ones that have outlets on em. depending on the energy n shit of your heater, the panels, and the battery, it would be about 4-12 hours charge, 12 hours run for a bunch of devices. hook your heater up to that. leave the panels in your window (even in countries with not alot of sunlight you should be able to get some energy) to get the battery charged up. then in the morning, slap that bad boy to your heater (i live in a small house thats only 2 room so my heater is very close to my bed. fire hazard but if thats what kills me thats a win) and put your clothes over it. should only take half an hour and not alot of energy from your battery but boom. warm clothes and a slightly warm room.

update: doing some searching to figure out the expenses. found out that good quality solar panels are like 15-20 euros for more than 4 of them??? fuck??? you might need wiring knowledge though fuck.

update update: you dont need wiring knowledge.

update update update: the battery pack in question is 100-200 euros for a good one. but because of wattage itll be a long charge time. i mean. its a one time purchase and you get warmth and a cheaper electric bill so... win?

update update update update: oh god update is going to lose its meaning to me. anywho the panels work on heavy overcast days so thats a win too.

god bless I love how you've looked into this like adore the stream of consciousness at the end but do not fear! this is not something available to us as, you know, money etc, but we do have sweaters and blankets. we could afford to put the heat on for a few hours a day and do plan to do so once the temperature reaches single figures in the house (in Celsius, don't worry...) but right now we're trying to hold out. it's money saving for the colder months (it doesn't get truly baltic until January/February here) rather than not having any money at all, you know? also while solar panels can work on overcast days, they would not be so efficient during polar night, which is what we experience for about three months (December to mid-February or so) -- the light never gets above twilight, and the sun does not properly rise. (we are very far north.) keeping a houses humidity level stable is actually far more efficient for retaining warmth, so a humidifier might be a better and cheaper investment if anyone out there is looking to raise the temperature by a few degrees!

not to get too much like a world politics class on here but for those of you who don't know, the UK is currently going through a cost of living crisis thanks to a lot of factors, namely Brexit, the war in Ukraine, and dreadful mismanagement by the incompetent and disorganised government. this crisis was predicted and hinted at a long time ago, but the government did sweet fuck all about it. now, before our winter has even begun, people are struggling to heat their homes -- some people have seen their energy bill go up from double digits per month (no more than £99) up to several thousand a month. the energy cap -- the absolute upper amount that can be charged per unit of fuel or electricity) has risen dramatically, been capped briefly, and then risen again. the country is running out of electricity and may have to do something called "load shedding" over the winter, where the electricity is shut off in a controlled blackout to save supplies. the last I checked, this would be for four hours in the evening, leaving people with no electricity in the very dark evenings right over dinner time, and right at the time where parents with school-aged children are trying to get them ready for the next day/kids are doing their homework. a lot of people require electricity to power the boiler to heat their homes and water, too, thus leaving people without heating or hot water in the dead of winter. this is predicted for January and February, but already people are unable to heat their homes, have to choose between eating and being warm, or have to skip meals so their kids can eat. (the cost of everything has gone up, even daily essentials, and the country is in a massive recession.) kids are showing up to school unable to concentrate because of hunger, or too tired and cold to work properly. the government has rolled out some relief, but it totals about £400 for the whole October-February period -- not even enough for one month of comfortable heating for some people. it is absolutely insane.

so yeah, don't worry about us. we can manage it if we're careful and don't mind a bit of discomfort for a few minutes as we change or shower, or for a few hours as the room warms up from the night. in the depth of winter we'll be able able keep the house cool but comfortable. but there are millions of others who are going to freeze and starve this winter, or who are going to have to go into debt because they have babies who cannot get this cold, or who are elderly and will have to walk to coffee shops to nurse a single drink for hours just for the warmth of the store, or ride buses all day just to get out of the cold. worry about these people -- all of them are victims of our absolutely inhumane government, who could have prepared for this and done something to ease it, but chose not to.

Small Satellite Market - Forecast (2022 - 2027)

The Small Satellite Market size is analyzed to grow at a CAGR of 18.2% during the forecast 2021-2026 to reach $8.2 billion. Small satellites, also termed as Smallsats are a class of flight-proven spacecraft, designed to meet high reliability mission requirements. The increasing popularity of these mini-satellites and nano-satellites is mostly due to their lightweight, versatile and inexpensive designs, integrated with the latest software and hardware improvements, which fuel the growth of the Small Satellite Industry. Hence, the affordable solution has broadened the diverse mission-specific standards across various industry verticals, including, asset tracking, security & defense, IoT, and other space programs. Furthermore, the rise in demands for satellite imagery, low-cost high-speed broadband, along with the investments in fundamental research in CubeSats are some of the factors that drive the growth of the Small Satellite Market.

Small Satellite Market Report Coverage

The report: “Small Satellite Industry Outlook – Forecast (2021-2026)”,  by IndustryARC covers an in-depth analysis of the following segments of the Small Satellite Industry.

By Offering: Hardware (Satellite Antennas, Solar Panels, Terminals, Support Equipment and Others), Software and Service. By Type: Mini-Satellite, Micro-Satellite, Nano-Satellite, Pico-Satellite, Femto-Satellite and Other. By Industry: Satellite Services, Satellite Manufacturing, Launch Vehicles and Ground Equipment. By Mission: Constellation Missions, Installation Missions and Replacement Missions. By Application: IoT/M2M, Communication, Earth Observation & Meteorology, Military & Intelligence, Scientific Research & Exploration, Weather and Other By Geography: North America (U.S, Canada, Mexico), Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Others), APAC(China, Japan India, South Korea, Australia and Others), South America(Brazil, Argentina and others)and RoW (Middle east and Africa).

Key Takeaways

North America is estimated to hold the largest market share of 45.7% in 2020, owing to the eminent requirement for responsive defense forces, massive investments for breakthrough custom-designed satellites, along with rigorous commercial services demand for satellite bandwidth and network solution.

The M2M Satellite Communication technologies are majorly driven by the potential launches of cloud-based solutions is estimated to drive the market.

The promising requirements to seek reliable connectivity between the land and sea operations, along with VSAT connectivity for on-board security, drive the market growth.

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Small Satellite Market Segment Analysis – By Type

By Type, the Small Satellite Market is segmented into Mini-Satellite, Micro-Satellite, Nano-Satellite, Pico-Satellite, Femto-Satellite and Other. The Mini-Satellite is estimated to hold the highest share of 33.5% in 2020, owing to the advantageous features, including miniaturized design, travel at high speeds and remote sensing technology. In addition, affordable development solutions of Nano-Satellite technology makes them a suitable option to deliver superior solutions for communications. In February 2021, Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian nanosatellite company is set to launch its fifth nanosatellite, Centauri 3. The Centauri 3 is Fleet Space’s fifth and most advanced Commercial Nanosatellite, designed to power up a global network of connected devices deployed worldwide. Increasingly, these miniaturized spacecraft provide lucrative opportunities to most business enterprises to accelerate the growth of the Small Satellite Market.

Small Satellite Market Segment Analysis – By Application

By Application, Small Satellite Market is segmented into IoT/M2M, Communication, Earth Observation & Meteorology, Military & Intelligence, Scientific Research & Exploration, Weather and other. The communication segment held the major share of 22.2% in 2020 in the Small Satellite Market, due to the successful introduction of game-changing software for the satellite communication industry along with new business opportunities to expand remote location operation and real-time asset monitoring. In March 2020, a leading provider of next generation content connectivity solutions, NOVELSAT announced a comprehensive solution for mission critical satellite communications. The solution by Novelsat is designed to deliver highest levels of transmission security, resilience and robustness, with a comprehensive wide-ranging security suit, including, transmission security (TRANSEC), communication security (COMSEC), low probability of detection (LPD) and low probability of interception (LPI). Therefore, the growing demand for optimum levels of security and protection for business operations and other mission critical communications of across defense, security and government is estimated to drive the Small Satellite Market.

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Small Satellite Market Segment Analysis – By Geography

North America is estimated to hold the largest market share of 45.7% in 2020, along with Europe, owing to the eminent requirement for responsive defense forces, massive investments for breakthrough custom-designed satellites, along with rigorous commercial services demand for satellite bandwidth and network solution. The industry is poised to continue its rapid growth as SpaceX and others put up constellations of thousands of satellites intended to serve areas without access to broadband. In order to deliver beta testers download speeds, and robust internet coverage from space, worldwide, in May 2019, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched another 60 Starlink internet satellites into Earth’s orbit. The proposal of SpaceX's satellite internet was initiated in 2018, with the successful launch of the two Starlink test craft, known as TinTinA and TinTinB, designed to transfer huge amounts of information rapidly in comparison to fiber-optic cable. Thus, the Small Satellite industry is poised to grow as large scale space organizations are offering “space as a service” to enable business enterprises with accessibility to data, specific to business requirements. Simultaneously, the market of Small Satellite is witnessing potential growth in Asia Pacific region, owing to the digitalization across industries and vast majority of demonstrative space debris clearance service. In March 2021, Astroscale, a Japan-UK based company launched a mission aimed at removal of debris from Earth's orbit. With Elsa-d, a small satellite under the "End-of-Life Services" offerings by Astroscale, the mission was developed for a space debris removal system. Therefore, the significant intended areas to serve by the lower-cost satellite technologies and surging demand for Earth observation satellites in these regions are estimated to drive the Small Satellite Market.

Small Satellite Market Drivers

Popularity of M2M Satellite Communication

The M2M Satellite Communication technologies are majorly driven by the potential launches of cloud-based solutions, and growing demand from various end-users to expand their business reach globally, are estimated to drive the Small Satellite Market. In addition, rugged, superior and cost-effective Satellite Terminals and telematics devices are becoming a part of the present-day comprehensive fleet management solution, which also boost the market growth. In December 2020, the leading GPS Tracking Systems provider, Rewire Security launched GPS & Telematics software for fleets. The latest software by Rewire enables enterprise owners to generate the location of vehicles in real-time, monitor fleet driver behaviour, observe driver route history and other GPS & Telematics software features. Based on the increasing needs of visibility across the transportation sectors, in October 2020, ORBCOMM, a global provider of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, launched ST 2100, a state-of-the-art satellite communications device that enables solution providers for seamless Satellite connectivity to IOT applications, and also several other targeted verticals, such as fleet management and utility. Thus, the latest versatile Communication device launches and power-efficient platforms, such as Satellite Antenna for maximum reliability and security drive the growth of the Small Satellite Market.

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Potential demand for Maritime Satellite Communication solution

The promising requirements to seek enhanced and reliable connectivity between the land and sea operations, along with VSAT connectivity for on-board security and surveillance of shipping industry influence the demand of Maritime Satellite Communication platforms, thereby drive the growth of the Small Satellite Market. The technology innovations across maritime sectors are expanding due to the introduction of gyro-stabilized ground terminals, Minisatellite platforms and multi-frequency dish antennas to reduce the time lag during data transfer. In April 2019, a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, ZTE, announced the collaboration with Zhejiang Branch of China Mobile to launch “Heweitong”, a marine broadband satellite solution. The Heweitong offers seamless extension of the mobile network to the ocean, and mitigate other issues, such as high cost, poor coverage and slow data rate. Therefore, the growing emergence of new marine communication with ubiquitous connection for exceptional service is estimated to drive the Small Satellite Market.

Small Satellite Market Challenges

Compatible Issue

The Small Satellites are designed to deliver advantageous services and indubitably, there are several successful launches around the globe and other possible space missions that eventually supported the mass production of platforms such as the CubeSat for upgraded communications role. However, small satellites are not compatible with every kind of operation due to being launched in lower orbits and also, tend to have a shorter lifespan. The design lasts for a year as it gets orbital decay due to the other orbital elements in space. Moreover, the available space is very limited, which is a major concern along with other mentioned design flaws, which hinder the growth of the Small Satellite Market.

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Small Satellite Market Landscape

Partnerships and acquisitions along with product launches are the key strategies adopted by the players in the Small Satellite Market. The Small Satellite top 10 companies include Airbus SE, BAE Systems plc, Dauria Aerospace, L3Harris Technologies, Inc., Lockheed Martin, Magellan Aerospace, Maxar Technologies Inc., Northrop Grumman, ORBCOMM Inc., Rocket Lab, Park Aerospace Corp., Sierra Nevada Corporation, Aerospace Corporation, Space Flight Laboratory and many more.

Acquisitions/Technology Launches/Partnerships

In April 2021, the Norwegian Space Agency announced the successful launch of the NorSat-3 maritime tracking microsatellite built by Space Flight Laboratory (SFL), a premier microspace organization and provider of low-cost microsatellites and nanosatellites, in Toronto. The NorSat-3 maritime tracking is designed for space-based maritime traffic monitoring.

In April 2020, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA awarded Lockheed Martin a $5.8 million contract for the Blackjack program, a satellite integration operation. The Blackjack is a project of DARPA to deploy a constellation of 20 satellites in low Earth orbit by the year 2022 to generate global high-speed communications. 

In March 2020, Rocket Lab, a private American aerospace manufacturer and small satellite launch service provider signed an agreement to acquire Sinclair Interplanetary, a Toronto-based satellite hardware company. The acquisition is developed to deliver reliable and flexible satellite and launch solutions.

For more Aerospace and Defense  Market reports, please click here

With the compliments of the Directorate General Public Relations,

Government of the Punjab, Lahore Ph.: 99201390.

No.1227/Tayyab/Umer

HANDOUT(A)

NEW FOREIGN INVESTMENT WILL IMPROVE THE ECONOMY AND INCREASE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES: CH. SHAFAY HUSSAIN

LAHORE, May 03:

Provincial Minister for Industries and Commerce Chaudhry Shafay Hussain has said that there is trade cooperation between Pakistan and Korea, but effective measures are needed to increase bilateral economic cooperation. Former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain played an active role in increasing trade cooperation between Pakistan and South Korea. He also received a diplomatic award for his outstanding services for the promotion of bilateral trade cooperation. He is also the Honorary Consul General of South Korea in Pakistan. Motorway is a major project of Korean government in Pakistan. Korea has also invested in Daewoo bus service and other sectors.

Provincial Minister for Industries and Commerce Chaudhry Shafay Hussain expressed these views while addressing Korea-Pakistan Business Forum 2024 as a special guest. The business forum held at Defense which was attended by Korean Ambassador Park Kajin, the business community of Pakistan and Korea. The business forum was organized by the Korean Embassy in Pakistan. The provincial minister said that new foreign investment will improve the economy and increase employment opportunities. Investments in Special Economic Zones of Punjab are exempted from income tax for 10 years while for the first time there is a facility to import duty free machinery. He said that 6 business facilitation centers have been established in major cities of Punjab. 5 more facilitation centers are planned. A new policy regarding industrial zones is being prepared. There have been beneficial discussions with China, UK and other foreign companies regarding manufacturing of solar panels in Pakistan. Work has also been started on shifting the industry to solar energy. The transition of the industry to solar energy will provide cheaper electricity to the industry.

The provincial minister said that the quality of technical education will be improved and the institutions will be adapted to international standards. Skilled manpower is in high demand in the global market. Punjab Government is focused on preparing skilled manpower as per the requirements of global market. Chief Minister Punjab Skill Development Program is also being launched. Information technology short courses will be provided free of cost to the youth. The syllabus of the courses is being aligned with the modern requirements. Korean language courses have been introduced in technical colleges of Punjab. Japanese, Arabic and German language courses will also be started.

Chaudhry Shafi Hussain said that effective measures are needed to increase economic and trade cooperation with Korea. Korea and Pakistan can play an important role in improving the environment. Korea should consider setting up an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Punjab. Pakistan has great potential in information technology sector, both countries can increase cooperation in this sector.

Addressing the forum, the Korean ambassador said that there is economic cooperation between Korea and Pakistan, but there is a need to increase bilateral trade cooperation. The speakers gave useful suggestions for increasing trade cooperation between Pakistan and Korea.

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