Solar Panels for Rented house

YBR

My area currently has a group-buying scheme for Solar Photovoltaic cells, and I'm interested.
It's almost certain that we'll be moving out of our current house in 3 years time and we expect to rent it out while living in a house provided with my employment. 
Consequently, I'd be interested to know whether having Solar PV is likely to increase the rent we might receive, since it's clearly not going to payback in our energy bills over 3 years.
Does anyone have any experience?

anselld

It is unlikely to affect the rent noticeably but it might make it easier to let.

You would continue to receive any Feed In Tariff after it is let although it would become taxable along with rental income.

eddddy

I suspect it will depend on the type of people who happen to be in the market for a rental property, when you decide to start letting the house.

• A lot of people might be indifferent about solar panels, so having them won't influence the rent they're willing to pay.

• A keen environmentalist might be specifically searching out a rental house with solar panels, and might be prepared to pay more rent for one.

• A 'money focussed' renter might do the calculations. e.g. If they save me £25 a month in electricity bills, they might be prepared to pay £15 or £20 more in rent per month

If you're selling a property, perhaps it makes sense to wait a month or two for a 'keen environmentalist' to come along. But if you're letting a property, waiting a month or two for a a 'keen environmentalist' to come along doesn't make sense. You'll lose more rent in those one or two months than you'll later make up.


But who knows, in 3 years time attitudes might change. Electricity bills might be much higher and/or people become more environmentally aware.

Frank_Story

I think you should look at your EPC (Energy Performance Certificate). It is mooted that the government are wanting rental properties to have an EPC of C or above by 2025 for new tenancies and 2028 for all tenancies. A decision has not yet been made on this. Solar panels might bring your property up to a C or above or they might not and you'd then have to spend more money getting your property up to a C. 

YBR

Frank_Story said:

I think you should look at your EPC (Energy Performance Certificate). It is mooted that the government are wanting rental properties to have an EPC of C or above by 2025 for new tenancies and 2028 for all tenancies. A decision has not yet been made on this. Solar panels might bring your property up to a C or above or they might not and you'd then have to spend more money getting your property up to a C. 

We don't have a valid EPC - we had one provided when we bought the house but that's nearly 10 years ago.
That included recommending getting Solar Water heating which was already in place then, so don't really believe it to be reliable.
With the things we've already done (new double glazing as the old units were failing, LED light fittings, Thermostatic valves, new condensing boiler, replacing the electric storage heaters that were in one room) I hope it should lift from low "D" rating then into "C" anyway. 
There's some flat roof that could probably be better insulated, not that we've checked, but I don't see that as worth doing for one room until the roof itself needs replacing anyway. Other than that the Solar PV is the only reasonably practicable improvement.

It's good to know any feed-in tariff remains with the owner, not the occupier.

markin

Its called SEG now and its only worth 3p - 7p depending who your SEG is with, Not sure its worth it other than for kindness to the tenants or to be green.