Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) I beg to move, That
this House has considered the matter of solar rooftop
installations. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr
Sharma. I am glad to have secured this debate about solar rooftop
installations. Monday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change left us in no doubt about the urgency of tackling
the accelerating climate emergency, and one of the fastest, most
effective ways of...Request free trial
(Brighton, Pavilion)
(Green)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of solar rooftop
installations.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Sharma. I am
glad to have secured this debate about solar rooftop
installations. Monday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change left us in no doubt about the urgency of
tackling the accelerating climate emergency, and one of the
fastest, most effective ways of doing so here in the UK is to
step up plans to decarbonise our housing stock. In this short
debate, I want to focus on rooftop solar in particular.
There is no doubt that the number of solar rooftop installations
has soared in the last decade or so, and I applaud that
achievement. I am also happy to applaud this Government’s
ambition to increase solar from its current capacity of around 15
GW all the way up to 50 GW by 2030 and then 70 GW by 2035. I am
sure we are all united in recognising that achieving and, indeed,
surpassing that target is vital.
Solar Energy UK estimates that, of the 15 GW of solar power
capacity currently in place, around two thirds is on the ground,
and the remainder is on residential and commercial roofs. This
morning, I want to make the case for the installation of solar
panels on all suitable new-build homes to be made mandatory and
to explore how to overcome some of the obstacles to domestic
solar.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for raising this issue. In my
constituency, we are very keen to endorse this. Does she agree
that solar roof panels can enhance the value of a property and
that, for large families who use lots of hot water, the savings
generated and the benefit to the environment can make the
up-front cost worth while?
The hon. Member makes my point beautifully. This is a win-win
policy: it is good for householders and good for the environment,
and it is good to get people’s bills down too. I thank him for
that intervention, with which I entirely agree.
Some 80% of the buildings that we will have in 2050 have already
been built, and we must work hard to retrofit them with
renewables, but the remaining 20% have still to be built, and
maximising the deployment of on-site solar generation in
new-build homes could be a real game changer. If we are serious
about continuing and accelerating what has been achieved to date
and generating a successful rooftop revolution, we should be
mandating that all suitable new homes come with solar panels as
standard. The Government have an opportunity to do that with the
new future homes standard.
I echo the recommendation made by the right hon. Member for
Kingswood () in his net zero review that
things be put in train to ensure that there are no delays to
delivery by 2025. However, I would go further and argue that we
do not need another consultation on whether to introduce a
requirement for new homes to be built with solar, because we know
that the British public are already behind the idea. A YouGov
poll just a few months ago found that 80% of people across the UK
would support the Government in making regulations to ensure that
solar panels are the default on appropriate new-build houses.
Only 9% were against that idea.
(Carlisle) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this interesting debate.
It feels a bit like groundhog day, because in September 2017 I
had a Westminster Hall debate on this very subject. Had the
Government followed her suggestion, we would have 1 million new
homes with solar panels today. Does she agree that making this
compulsory would not only lead to 150,000-plus houses per year
getting solar panels but would, in time, lead to price reduction,
making it cheaper, and innovation?
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for his leadership in this area.
I am continuing, I hope, the great work that he did, and I agree
with him entirely that there are so many wins. It makes economic
sense for people, and it also makes sense for supply chains,
because if they had the certainty of knowing that this was going
to be a mandatory requirement, they would be able to gear up for
it.
As I say, the British public are behind this idea—no wonder when,
as the hon. Member for Strangford () has said, such a policy would save homeowners money.
The figures that I have are that they would save between £974 and
£1,151 a year on average on their energy bills. Solar Energy UK
has found that installing a residential solar system on a new
build property is 10% cheaper than retrofitting one.
There are a host of MPs from different parties behind this idea,
including the hon. Member for Carlisle (), who tabled an amendment to
the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill that would make it a
requirement for every home built after 1 April 2025. I agree with
his analysis of the multiple benefits of such a policy, including
for the economy, jobs, consumer bills and energy security.
For the avoidance of any misunderstanding, I completely
understand—obviously—that not every individual site is suitable
for solar panels. In their response to a recent petition on this
issue that attracted over 15,000 signatures, the Government cited
the importance of being able to tailor requirements to individual
sites as one of the main reasons why they did not back the
proposal that all new builds should be required to have solar
panels as a condition of planning permission. However, clearly
nobody is suggesting that solar panels should be put on roofs
that are not suitable; it is simply being suggested that they are
put on roofs that are suitable.
During an Environmental Audit Committee hearing last week, the
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero put forward
some other objections to this proposal. I think that they can all
be countered successfully and I will take a little time today to
try to do just that.
First, the Secretary of State said:
“We know that there are many different ways to skin a cat;
decarbonisation, heat pumps, whether ground-source or air, could
be a solution. If you start to say this is the only technology
you can use and the only solution you use, you are in danger of
losing out on a potentially better solution in that particular
location.”
That is what he said. However, insisting on solar panels is not
akin to saying that they are the only renewables allowed, as the
Secretary of State seems to think; in fact, nothing could be
further from the truth. On a practical level, having solar panels
to generate electricity for a home does not preclude, for
example, having an air or ground-source heat pump as a renewable
source of heat. Of course, solar panels are often used to help
run heat pumps, because they are much cheaper and greener from an
energy consumption perspective than using electricity generated
by fossil fuel. From a legislative perspective, mandating solar
panels on new homes is a bit like insisting that car
manufacturers install seatbelts. It does not mean that they
cannot also install a whole range of other safety measures.
Secondly, the Secretary of State expressed the concern that
insisting on solar panels would push up the cost of a new home.
However, under the Government’s changes to part L of the building
regulations and, indeed, the future homes standard, house
builders already have to incorporate energy-saving and low-carbon
heating technologies when they are constructing new homes, which
will have a cost attached.
The average price for solar panels is around £5,000; if someone
wants batteries on top, the cost is between £1,200 and £6,000,
according to the Energy Saving Trust. However, that is a
relatively small fraction of the cost of a new home and it would
quickly be more than offset by the many benefits and cost savings
across the economy, including lower bills for the householder, as
the hon. Member for Strangford has indicated. There is evidence
that solar panels add value to a house—an average of £1,800. In
addition, there are ways for the Government to mitigate any
increases for house buyers, which I will say a little bit more
about shortly.
Moving on, the next obstacle that the Secretary of State came up
with was that mandatory solar panels would apparently cause an
additional housing crisis, because of the problems with global
supply chains for things such as critical minerals. Again, that
argument does not really bear scrutiny. Evidence given to the
Environmental Audit Committee earlier this year made it clear
that if there was the right political will it was perfectly
possible to source materials outside China, where the current
problems lie, and that alternatives to silicon exist, such as
perovskite, which can be sourced and supplied outside regions of
conflict, and at low cost, to the capacity of 30 TW. Our expert
witness, Dr Case, the chief technology officer of Oxford PV, said
to the Committee:
“It is not a material that would be a problem if we pushed
forward with deploying this technology in the future.”
Finally, another reason that the Secretary of State came up was
that this proposal would stifle innovation. He said:
“To answer your question as to why we should not just simply
mandate solar as the solution in, for example, the future homes
standard, my answer would be that as soon as you do that, you
take away innovation.”
Again, that argument simply does not stand up to scrutiny. The
Government have relied heavily on the smart export guarantee to
drive growth and innovation, but Solar Energy UK has made it
clear that we will need something more than that to reach 70 GW.
Self-consumption makes much more sense, particularly with the
economics of solar being where they are now, than selling the
electricity that is generated back to the grid.
In its REPowerEU plan, the European Commission explains how the
policies that it advocates, including the solar rooftop
initiative, will make technologies such as solar more
sustainable, as well as focused on innovation right across the
value chains. There is also potential for mandatory solar on
homes to generate the conditions for a regulatory sandbox, with
the industry working alongside house builders to trial new
innovations—something that the European Commission is, again,
encouraging.
With the UK seeking to build 300,000 homes a year by the
mid-2020s, the industry would have a steady market, creating the
conditions for innovation, greater efficiency and therefore lower
costs. That would be in marked contrast to the stop-start
approach that the right hon. Member for Kingswood identified in
his net zero review as a significant barrier to the investment
needed to meet our renewables target.
At the risk of pre-empting the Minister’s response, I want to say
a few words about mandating versus the presumption that future
homes will come with renewables baked in. Actually, I just want
to say one word: predictability. From successive Governments
since 2010 we have had the zero-carbon homes standard, the code
for sustainable homes, feed-in tariffs, smart export tariffs, the
energy company obligation and green homes grant. It is no wonder
the net zero review found that lack of confidence in
“inconsistent” Government is a huge barrier to renewables
investment. That needs to change. As we know, house builders will
build to the regulations.
The Government need to get fully behind solar and to help create
the conditions for the industry to grow, for houses to be built
with solar roofs by default, and for all that renewable capacity
to be fully realised. As the Aldersgate Group highlights,
providing regulatory clarity to business is also how to
accelerate innovation. Governments should not just rely on
markets. They need to continue to play a leadership role.
Rooftop solar installations are a British success story; when it
comes to research and development, we are world leaders. Although
there have been some ups and downs because of the stop-start
policy framework, the rate of installation has rapidly improved
in recent years. The Minister knows that last year saw more than
130,000 rooftop solar arrays installed in the UK—more than double
the number installed in 2021. The industry estimates that we need
a further doubling of the current pace of installation for
consumer-scale systems to meet the solar power target set out in
the Government’s energy security strategy. To put it another way:
we need an average of 4.3 GW per year of solar to be installed,
compared with the 3.2 GW installed last year. That is clearly
achievable if we step up the pace. In fact, it would be less than
in 2011 and 2012, at the height of the feed-in tariff era. As I
hope I have successfully argued, equipping every new home with
the capacity to harvest the sun’s abundant energy will drive the
next stage of solar’s growth.
In the meantime, I recognise that there are still some obstacles,
most notably the restricted availability of equipment and an
acute skills shortage. I want to say a little about each of those
and propose potential solutions.
When the Secretary of State appeared before the Environmental
Audit Committee last week he referenced capacity issues in supply
chains. I understand those concerns and agree that steps must be
taken to diversify and develop regional supply chains, including
transparency standards, but that needs to happen anyway, whether
or not new homes are automatically fitted with solar. That kind
of requirement would spur things on.
Overcoming the skills shortage is equally important. It demands a
skills and training revolution—a solar army. The industry
estimates that the 70 GW target could take us to 60,000 jobs in
the UK. The previous peak was in 2014, when solar had 20,000
employees. But those new jobs need people to fill them. At
present, from manufacturing to construction and engineering, from
maintenance to data analysis, there is a growing gap between what
is required to deliver on solar and the skills base that is
coming through our training and education pathways. Solar
builders are also competing against the wind and automotive
industries for workers.
Requiring solar on all new homes could create an extra incentive
to address the bottlenecks and, for example, unleash the huge
potential there is to retrain workers from the energy sources of
the past, so that they can transition to the renewable sectors of
the future. Around 70% of oil and gas jobs have some skill
overlap with low-carbon roles, and across Europe there are
examples of good practice in using the closure of coal-fired
power stations as an opportunity to draw on a new potential
talent pool. For example, more than 120 people from a coal-fired
power plant near Rome are being given solar panel installation
training right now. Others in the industry are setting up their
own training centres; Svea Solar opened three in Sweden, Spain
and Germany in 2022, for example, training around 600 people.
Here in the UK, London-based Solar Skills is an example of how
industry is aiming its efforts at career switchers and secondary
school leavers, with bootcamp-style introductory training
workshops and online training, as well as interview opportunities
with existing solar companies and the potential to progress on to
apprenticeship schemes in London-based solar businesses. The
Trafford-based Green Skills Academy is doing exactly as its name
implies, offering a number of training courses in green
technologies, including solar, to support Manchester becoming a
zero-carbon city by 2038. From the global accounting firm PwC to
the think-tank Green Alliance, there is consensus that more
people must be attracted into green energy in order to deliver on
the UK’s targets.
I acknowledge that the Government are aware of the problem, but
their response to date has been piecemeal. The Minister will know
that the apprenticeship levy, for example, is still underspent. I
hope he can say something today about an approach that is more
joined-up, strategic and comprehensive.
I would also welcome the Minister’s comments on how the
Government will be tackling the traditional under-representation
of women and ethnic minorities in the energy industry so that, as
the sector expands, that does not become more pronounced and
exacerbate the skills gap challenge. Working with the sector to
ensure that the workforce receives regular training to keep up
with rapid technical and legislative changes must go hand in hand
with addressing the skills shortage. Will the Minister tell us
whether that forms part of his discussions with the solar
industry? All those issues need addressing if the pace of rooftop
solar installation is to keep up with the demands of consumers
and the climate crisis.
My last point is about finance. The organisation 100% Renewable
UK has calculated that mandatory solar panels and heat pumps in
new homes would add around £8,000 to the cost of a new home, with
that amount decreasing as installations gather speed. That is no
more than a 4% increase on average new house prices of, as I said
earlier, around £180,000. Of course, if they wanted, the
Government could offer interest-free loans for this technology.
They have already said that they are looking at
“options to facilitate low-cost finance”
to make it easier for retail lenders to drive rooftop deployment.
What progress has there been with solutions such as
property-linked finance or green mortgages, which have been
identified as tools to help consumers with the capital cost of
installation, or with regulation, for example, to incentivise low
interest rates for green mortgages?
When I asked the Minister about solar at the last Department for
Energy Security and Net Zero oral questions, he said he wanted to
“go further and faster”. During last week’s Budget statement, the
Chancellor proudly proclaimed that he was fixing the roof while
the sun was shining. Both of those signs are encouraging, so I
hope the Government will back solar in an even bigger way,
starting by making it mandatory on all suitable new homes. It is
a win-win policy, lowering bills and those all-important carbon
emissions, while massively boosting our thriving renewables
sector, improving energy security, creating hundreds of thousands
of good-quality jobs and helping to level up, all at no cost to
the taxpayer. That is what a rooftop revolution looks like, and
that is how to ensure targets get delivered.
11.18am
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero ()
Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton,
Pavilion () on securing this important
debate and giving such an impassioned, well-informed, moderate
and fair speech. I say that all the more so because I think I
chided her the last time we were in this Chamber. She has
continued to be a champion for rooftop solar, alongside my hon.
Friend the Member for Carlisle (), and that is a passion that
I think we all share.
Deploying commercial and domestic rooftop solar is a key priority
for the Government, and it is one of the most popular and easily
deployed renewable energy sources, with 1 million homes now
having solar panels installed. The hon. Member for Brighton,
Pavilion graciously referred to the progress that has been made,
and I was delighted to see that. There were 138,000 installations
last year—nearly as many as in the previous three years combined.
In addition, we have around the same level of solar capacity as
they do in the sunshine-radiated country of Spain, and more than
that of France, so, on a comparative basis, I think we have been
doing pretty well. I have rehearsed this fact many times, but it
is always worth sharing that just 7% of our electricity came from
renewables in 2010, before we had a Conservative-led Government,
and it is now heading towards half. I am proud of that.
However, I agree with the hon. Lady that that is not enough. If
we are to fulfil our net zero pledges and Government aspirations
in this area, we need to go further. Solar can benefit households
and businesses by allowing them to reduce electricity bills
significantly and receive payment for excess electricity
generated. Warehouses, distribution centres and industrial
buildings with high electricity demand can also offer significant
potential for solar deployment, which can rapidly pay for itself
through energy bill savings. Projects can be installed quickly
and relatively cheaply, and that creates new local jobs and
contributes to a green recovery.
The British energy security strategy affirms that the Government
will aggressively explore renewable technologies, including
rooftop solar, to contribute to a net zero-compliant future. As
the hon. Lady said, the report out this week, which gives us the
latest update on the science, shows even more starkly how
important it is that we and others move in a net zero direction.
We expect a fivefold increase in solar deployment to 70 GW by
2035. That builds on the 14.5 GW capacity already deployed across
large-scale ground-mounted solar and rooftop installations in
this country.
The Government already support rooftop solar through the smart
export guarantee introduced in 2020, which the hon. Lady referred
to. It enables households to receive payment for excess
electricity generated, which is then sold back to the grid. In
December 2021, the Government introduced an uplift in energy
efficiency standards, which came into force in June 2022, and we
expect that, to comply with the uplift, most developers will
choose to install solar panels on new homes or use other
low-carbon technologies such as heat pumps.
On the SEG, I was pleased to see just yesterday that an energy
supplier, Good Energy—it is worth naming it for doing a good
job—has launched a new market-leading smart export tariff for
households with solar panels. It is “Power for Good”, and it will
pay 10p per kWh—significantly more than rivals. That is worth
highlighting, because it is exactly the kind of competition we
want to see for green consumers, and I believe it will also
transfer into higher deployment.
In 2022, the Government removed VAT on solar panels and on solar
panel and storage packages installed in residential accommodation
in Great Britain. We are also providing fiscal incentives to
encourage businesses to install rooftop solar—for example,
through tax relief and business rate exemptions for installing
and generating solar power. We also have the Government’s energy
efficiency schemes, such as the social housing decarbonisation
fund, the home upgrade grant and the energy company obligation,
all of which include solar panels as an eligible measure, subject
to certain requirements. That all makes rooftop solar even more
accessible.
As I said, whatever our record to date, we want and need to go
faster. That is why, just last month, the Government published a
consultation on changes to permitted development rights, seeking
to simplify planning processes for larger commercial rooftop
installations, and introduced a new permitted development right
for solar canopies, enabling more solar installations to benefit
from the flexibilities and planning freedoms that permitted
development rights offer.
We have not stopped there. As part of the consultation on the
future homes and buildings standards, which will be published
later this year, the Government will explore how we can continue
to drive on-site renewable electricity generation, such as
rooftop solar, where appropriate, in new homes and other
buildings.
Notwithstanding the hon. Lady’s understandable impatience—she
says that we should just get on with it—in that consultation and
that process this year, we have the opportunity to take forward
the arguments that she and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle
have deployed.
Unsurprisingly, the Minister sings the praises of what the
Government have done so far, but he does acknowledge that it will
not be enough. I wish to come back to the industry estimate that
we need a further doubling of the current pace of installation
for consumer-scale systems to meet the Government’s own target.
Why are the Government setting their face against all the
arguments that have been amassed about making solar mandatory? He
has not said why he is against doing that. As well as having this
debate just now, I wonder whether he would be prepared to meet me
in the coming weeks so that we can get to the bottom of why the
Government do not want to go down that road.
The hon. Lady anticipates what I was going to say, because I was
about to suggest that I would be happy to meet her and discuss
these matters. As she said, the Secretary of State gave a number
of reasons at the Environmental Audit Committee as to why
mandating might not be the right thing. The hon. Lady has
addressed some of those by saying that no one is suggesting that
solar should be imposed on buildings where it is not suitable. It
is about defining that, making sure that it is right and talking
to all the various stakeholders. That is why, if we were to
choose to go down that route, we would need to go and talk to
people and get their inputs as well. I am all ears, because, as
the hon. Lady says, we want to drive this forward and to do so in
the most appropriate way.
As I said, our record to date is pretty good comparably, but we
must consider what we need to do. It is not enough to be in the
lead. Looking at various assessments of policy, we may be just
about the only economy that is aligned with net zero by 2050 at
the moment, but to stay on track we have to move ever more
ambitiously forward.
I commend what the Government have done. They have done a huge
amount over the past 10 or 12 years, which is entirely to their
credit. Interestingly, genuine cross-party consensus is emerging
and Members do support what is being suggested. I tabled an
amendment to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which did
not go to a vote, but if were to come back from the House of
Lords as an amendment to the Bill, would the Minister, given that
there is quite a lot of support across the House from all
parties, look seriously at reconsidering the Government’s
position?
As I said, we are under a legal obligation to meet our net zero
obligations, and we have set a target of that fivefold increase
by 2035. We are open to argument, but we want to get the policy
right. It is not our position that mandating solar on all
appropriate roofs is the right policy now, but we are very open,
and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and others to discuss this
further. I look forward to developing arguments to get this
right, and I am sure that that is what we all want. It is not
about an obsession with mandating; we want to do that which will
most increase the take-up of solar in an appropriate way.
There is more to be done to meet the opportunities that rooftop
solar provides. As an example, we and Ofgem recognise that
connection costs and timescales can be a barrier to the
deployment of rooftop solar. Currently, rooftop solar projects
are required to contribute to any distribution network
reinforcement needed to accommodate the connections but Ofgem has
decided that, in future, for connection applications received
from 1 April, rooftop solar projects will no longer be liable for
such costs where the solar capacity is less than the demand on a
site. Where the solar generation exceeds site demand, projects
would still contribute less than they have previously. As well as
reducing connection costs, this should accelerate connection
times for rooftop solar.
I understand that up-front costs of solar might prevent
households from installing, which is why the Government are
working to facilitate low-cost finance from retail lenders for
homes and small business premises, aligning with the
recommendations in the Skidmore review on net zero. I meet
regularly with financial institutions that have signed up to net
zero and that are looking to work with us to come up with the
right methods to provide the answer to the finance question,
which was one of the hon. Lady’s points.
I have very little time left, but let me look down at the
questions that the hon. Lady gave me to see whether there is
anything to which I can usefully respond. On skills, I entirely
agree with her. I am the co-chairman of the Green Jobs Delivery
Group. We have refined that, and we have met a number of times.
We have reduced the membership to make sure that we are focused
on action—action this day, as Churchill would put it—and that we
get the data from industry so that we can carry that to the
Department for Education and other colleagues to make sure we
have the bootcamps, the apprenticeships, the T-levels and the
rest of it to prepare people for what will be a significant
pipeline of future jobs—good jobs, I hope. I liked the seatbelt
analogy that the hon. Lady used, with one thing not necessarily
being a barrier to another, but, of course, there is always a
limited amount of capital available.
In conclusion, the Government have already taken decisive action
to encourage the deployment of rooftop solar. We will strive to
push even further over the coming year to make sure that rooftop
solar plays an even more active part in meeting our
decarbonisation targets. It helps to alleviate energy costs at
this time, when energy security is at the top of the public mind,
and it reduces reliance on imported energy.
I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate, for the way that
she has conducted it and for the arguments she has put forward.
Working in conjunction with my hon. Friend the Member for
Carlisle, I am sure we can meet and take this matter further.
Question put and agreed to.
|