Senior leaders in the solar industry have told the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee that solar power must be installed in new homes as standard.
Ian Rippin, Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) CEO told MPs that having photovoltaic panels on new home rooftops should be a fundamental “mainstay” of the Future Homes Standard to meet the legal goal of cutting emissions by 80% compared to homes built under the old regulations.
He said that:
“The problem now is that it’s in pockets, depending on local building regulations.”
Chris Hewett, Chief Executive of the trade association Solar Energy UK confirmed that expectations were that “pretty much every English home” built from 2025 will have some solar generation capacity.
When quizzed on the government target to have 70GW of solar power capacity in place by 2035, up from an estimated 15.5GW today, Chris Hewett replied that the goal is “definitely enough… and it’s feasible”. He added that solar power is comparably cheap to onshore wind and is the fastest renewable to deploy.
Increasing electricity generation from its current 4%, to 10% of the country’s demand, is expected to meet the growing power needs resulting from increasing electrification of heating and transportation.
As is the case today, expectations are that about two-thirds of capacity in 2035 will be in solar farms, with the rest split between residential and commercial sectors. But Chris Hewett added that there is “definitely going to be some floating solar” in the UK by then, the technology having been implemented elsewhere in the world many years ago. Furthermore, Chris Hewett told MPs that it is “absolutely certain that there is going to be a lot more solar post-2035.”
Obtaining timely connections to the grid was shown in the written evidence submitted to the committee to be one of the biggest barriers to expanding solar power, with waiting times extending well into the 2030s.
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Anna Mcorrin MP described the national grid as a “pretty broken system”.
Chris Hewett said that grid access was moving up the political agenda – and not just for solar, as the rise of renewables means that “we now have a completely different power sector”.
Professor Alastair Buckley, Professor of Organic Electronics at the University of Sheffield, suggested that it might be a good idea to have regional targets for grid connections, to incentivise distribution network operators. Committee Chair, Philip Dunne MP added that grid access could be the subject of its own dedicated inquiry.
Chris Hewett described the windfall tax on the energy sector as a “mistake”. As far as the solar sector is concerned, there is no allowance to offset the tax through investment, which produces an “unlevel playing field”. This is despite the dire need to wean the country off its dependence on natural gas.
Caroline Lucas MP questioned whether the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG), which pays consumers for excess solar power fed into the grid, is high enough to incentivise growth.
Ian Rippin said the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) was not enough and had been taken over by the economics of cheaper solar. It means that self-consumption makes more sense than selling the electricity generated.
Ian Rippen added that the UK is going to need something else to reach 70GW. He said that “There is a problem of fairness”.
Chris Hewett went on to say that access to cheap capital is needed to help expand the residential sector, as already seen in Scotland, where 0% loans for solar systems, insulation and heat pumps are available.
Dr Chris Case, Chief Technology Officer at Oxford PV, said that encouraging more solar and energy storage will be beneficial for everyone.
Caroline Lucas also brought up the issue of VAT which is applied on home battery systems. These are VAT free if installed alongside a solar system, but not if retrofitted afterwards. Dr Chris Case described this as a “perverse” situation.
Ian Levy MP, who has a solar manufacturing company within his constituency of Blyth Valley, asked what skills gaps needed to be filled, a critical issue for the solar sector, which is working with the Mayor of London on the Solar Skills London programme.
Chris Hewett said while demand for solar power presented an “absolutely massive opportunity” for new jobs, there was a severe need for skilled people, not least those qualified to work on high-voltage systems, to help rectify persistent grid access challenges.
Ian Rippin said that all electricians should know how to install solar systems. He added that “from a levelling up point of view, a solar installer in London and one in Liverpool earn about the same” while both are doing their bit for climate change.
Dr Chris Case concluded that, from an R&D perspective, there is no skills gap. However, he thought that the ‘manufacturing gap’ should take priority, as solar manufacturing within the UK is minimal. He added that it makes no sense to ship products from China given that glass, readily manufactured by British firms, accounts for most of the panels’ weight.
