It is our national duty to install rooftop solar panels at home

Most homes could save up to £600 a year just from solar panels, writes Donnachadh McCarthy

Solar panels can also help reduce energy costs for those who can’t install them (Reuters)

In the middle of the devastating news from Antarctica, where temperature records hit a new high, a bit of good news has come in: the UK is experiencing a little solar installation boom.

“I have seen nothing like it. We have taken a year’s bookings since Christmas”, Kevin Holland, director of the Solar Shed and a renewables consultant, told me.

While he welcomed the chancellor’s cut on VAT on solar and energy saving materials (which reduces a £4,000 solar system by about £200), Holland said that the real blockage in the industry is the lack of trained installers. Many electricians and roofers left the UK after Brexit, he laments.

The UK solar industry has been plagued by two decades of boom and bust, as government programmes were constantly introduced and scrapped. But now a boom is taking place due to the soaring costs of fossil-fuelled heating and electricity, not because of government action.

Chris Hewett, director of Solar Energy UK, agrees on the need for more skills training. He told me the government needs to urgently roll out nationally the Solar Skills Programme launched by the London mayor. That would enable the industry to create thousands of more jobs, he says.

I have advocated for solar PV (photovoltaic) for over 20 years, since my home became the first in London to sell metered solar electricity to the grid in 1998.

The climate crisis means it is our national duty – for those who own our homes and can afford it – to install home solar systems.

It can also help reduce energy costs for those who can’t install them. Every single house that goes solar removes demand from the grid. Lower demand allows cheaper renewables to make up a large portion of the grid supply, helping keep bills lower.

The average cost of a home solar system varies from about £4,000 to £7,000 depending on size and quality. A battery system will maximise consumption of your own solar electricity, rather than exporting the excess to the national grid. They cost from £4,000 to £9,000, again depending on size and sophistication of the system. It will also enable you to run your home on solar at night-time.

The industry estimates an average home with a four kilowatt system could save up to £600 a year from the solar installation and another £600 from the battery. But savings vary widely, depending on your lifestyle, such as whether you work from home and get the advantage of the midday peak production or run an electric car that can be charged during the day.

A £9,000 investment in a solar/battery system could optimally pay back in about eight years, and the beauty of an installed solar system is that it is also inflation-proofed, for the length of its operation. But the largest portion of my savings came from adopting an energy efficient lifestyle. I only heat the room I am in and to a maximum of 18C. The second largest savings come from insulation. I have solid wall insulation, 400mm of loft insulation and triple glazed windows. My solar system savings come in third. This puts in context the criminal failure by the chancellor last week to tackle our energy crisis.

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Instead of helping the poor by increasing universal credit and launching an annual £6bn home insulation and renewables programme, he poured £5bn into another fuel duty cut. He should have imposed a windfall tax on them to fund the programmes.

In comparison he spent just a tiny £0.065bn reducing VAT on solar and energy saving materials. He could also have removed planning restrictions on solar in conservation areas and on listed buildings, where the installations cannot be seen from the ground and clarified rules on helio-tracker systems, which allow people with sunny gardens but shaded roofs to access to solar electricity. And maybe it is time housing regulations required people in homes valued over £2m to install solar where practical.

We needed a green revolution. Instead Johnson and Sunak are still dancing for their oil corporation buddies, sticking a finger up to the poor and to future generations. Why not stick a finger back at them and, if you can afford it, go solar this year?