Compulsory solar panels are ideology masquerading as policy

3 May 2025, 15:28

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with either solar power or sticking it on your roof to save a little money on your electricity bills.

There is everything wrong with being forced to do it by a Government Minister on an ideological crusade.

The latest policy proposal for compulsory solar installations on all new build homes by 2027, and possibly some businesses, is devoid of serious detail. It’s a kite being flown to test public response. The detail will come in a new consultation on the Future Homes Standard, a package of measures to change, and probably expand, what are already hundreds of pages of British building regulations. In turn, concluding a review process started in 2019, and repeated in 2023/24. It reverses a kite already flown in October 2024 to “encourage” rather than compel the change.

This deeply unserious approach to policy-making is being driven by feuds between lobbyists and media spads fending off criticisms of Net Zero. The timing reflects divisions this week from within the Government’s own coalition. The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband meanwhile wishes to press on with a “rooftop revolution” proclaimed in July. It may also relate to a 2024 EU policy to do the same thing by 2029.

The absence of substance means that number 10 spin doctors have confidently asserted to the Times that the new rules will add only £3-4k to the cost of each new home, and pay for themselves in energy savings in just 3-4 years, or “more than £1,000 a year”. Were this true no mandate would be required, very few people would reject the opportunity to own a home that saves them money based on adding 1-2% to the average build cost. Developers would be losing money if they didn’t offer it.

It isn’t true, or relies on redistributing the cost of solar installations from those benefitting, to the rest of us, through bills and taxes. Which is typical of the UK’s ignominious history of claims about “cheap renewables”.

Factually, solar installations on suitable properties typically cost double the claim made (or more), while the payback on bills is around a third of savings claimed, with a possible bonus from being paid for over-production by your supplier through a smart energy guarantee. Which is how the government can claim the policy would save you more than typical power bills which are currently less than £1,000 a year. Payback periods then are more typically quoted as 8-20 years, not 3.

But not all properties are suitable. Across the UK solar typically operates 10% of the time, and this declines the further north you go. Tall buildings have a poor ratio of roof space to power needs. Short buildings can be shaded by tall buildings and trees. Which may explain why London has less useful solar power than Scotland. South-facing roofs with a pitch of 30-40 degrees are best for maximum sun. Some require structural reinforcement to cope with the weight. Panels are vulnerable to damage from high winds, storms, hail, and rodents. Systems linked to storage batteries are at a higher risk of fire, and so on.

The point is not that rooftop solar is unsafe or useless but that it is not universally useful, and as such should be no more compulsory than a garage. Weighing up those costs and benefits should be a matter for the future homeowner.

The Minister does not know best and really ought to know better. The UK Green Deal was a scheme between 2010-2015 to encourage uptake of energy efficiency technologies by UK households. It was a spectacular failure as installers cut corners, recommended the wrong solutions, and left many worse off with things that needed expensive rectification. Forcing solar panels onto all new homes regardless of their situation carries the same risk. Developers will tick the box. New owners will only see the problems in time and may face crippling bills.

The cash bonus from grid export also will decline. As supply increases; and does so mostly at times when energy is least needed (daytime in the summer), dynamic pricing will replace fixed rates and will often be zero (or less). Solar over-supply will create supply risks of the type we’ve just seen in Spain, by unbalancing the frequency of the grid, and causing cascade system failure.

A future Government may then think it both unfair that non-solar households are paying for over-production, and that solar owners should pay for technologies like flywheels and other balancing services to reduce that risk. Pretending that renewables are cheap and their social costs are a problem for tomorrow, eventually collides with tomorrow.

The coincidence of this policy proposal with that day in the dark for two countries beggars belief and shows either abject contempt for the public or dangerous complacency.

Solar panels, over 80% of which are produced in China, also carry reputation risks given some are produce in Xinjiang, using forced labour. Despite government commitments to ethical sourcing, it is remarkably hard to know. They are made using coal-fired power and transported halfway around the world, limiting their utility as emissions friendly technologies. Which at any rate was already trivial, and will not be meaningfully impacted by 150,000 additional homes a year having a bit of silicon on top.

In summary then the Government is proposing to add to the cost of homes in an expensive country that doesn’t build enough, with new regulations, in a market already over-regulated, with imported tat that may not work, and may cause blackouts, potentially produced by slave labour, in order to make no meaningful difference to average global temperatures.

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Andy Mayer is an Energy Analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs.

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