Rooftop Solar Adoption on Local Authority Property Outpaces Private Residential

RATES OF rooftop solar adoption by local authorities are outpacing private homeowners according to British solar company GRYD Energy.

Currently, 5.5% of residential property owned or leased by councils (99,146 homes) now have rooftop solar installed compared with 5% of privately owned homes in the UK.

Local authorities in Wales and Scotland are reporting the highest rates of rooftop solar installations. In Wales, 8.4% of council-owned homes and in Scotland 7.9% now have rooftop solar, compared with 4.9% in England and 3.8% in Northern Ireland.

Rooftop Solar Adoption

Across the UK, the highest-performing regions are North West Wales and North East Wales where more than one in five council-owned homes (23.6% and 21.0%) have solar panels installed. The next highest region is Scotland’s Aberdeen and North East, where 13.5% of council homes now have rooftop solar.

Conversely, just 1.8% of council homes in London have rooftop solar installed. Low proportions of solar-powered council homes are also reported in Southern Wales (0.3%), South West Wales (1.9%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (2.1%).

“Many councils are already under immense financial pressure, so the fact that on a national scale they are outpacing private homeowners in their rooftop solar rollout is remarkable,” says Mohamed Gaafar, CEO and co-founder of GRYD Energy.

“But we’re still talking about very small numbers here and no one is really winning this race. Rates of rooftop solar deployment need to increase dramatically across the entire public and private housing landscape if we are to achieve the government’s clean energy targets by 2030.”

“Many councils own thousands of residential properties. Imagine the impact and momentum that could be unlocked to tackle the clean energy transition if councils were supported and incentivised by government to deploy rooftop solar to those portfolios at scale.”

Rooftop Solar and Solar Farms

Gaafar says boosting deployment of rooftop solar could displace the need for many large-scale projects that have struggled to gain planning permission.

“Around 250,000 homes are built in the UK each year. That’s more than eight million square meters of prime solar roof space created annually – or 2,000 acres of solar farms that wouldn’t need to be built.

“Achieving the government’s ambitious green energy targets doesn’t need to be a contentious debate. Solar farms will certainly make an important contribution to Britain’s clean energy future, but we are missing a vital piece of the puzzle by overlooking the immense solar potential of Britain’s residential rooftops.

“When scaled, these independent systems can help millions of Brits to become energy independent and significantly reduce the burden on the national grid. They also don’t come with the potential widescale disruption for local residents that solar farms do or require the huge investment needed to upgrade transmission lines and distribution networks.

Government Incentives

Mohamed Gaafar notes that the right policy conditions need to be present to support higher rates of council rooftop solar uptake.

“With the closure of the Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) scheme to new applicants in 2019, councils lost an important incentive to install solar on new-builds,” says Gaafar.

“Despite this, our research shows that the buy-in from councils is there. They want to invest in rooftop solar systems to prepare their housing stock for a zero-carbon future and insulate their tenants from the energy market volatility that has pushed so many Brits into fuel poverty in recent years.”

“Last year, Ed Miliband said he wanted the government to unleash a solar rooftop revolution. The government must now act on that ambition and put serious investment and policy support behind helping local authorities and homeowners to adopt the technology, become energy independent and reduce the burden on the national grid.”

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