Should Liz Truss have offered free solar panels as well?

Shedman

uk1 said:

We have just been asked to join a local authority initiative under Solar Together that promises the benefits of going out to auction for Solar PV systems.  I wonder whether this is actually providing any real benefit …….

Are you Hampshire? I had the leaflet through yesterday and have registered.  It'll be interesting to see what sort of pricing they come up with but, like you, have some doubts about it all (plus I can't believe realistically they'll be able to do all the installations within 6 months of the quotes as the leaflet suggests is the aim...)

uk1

sienew said:

wrf12345 said:

Net metering of the output (so the household gets full credit for any energy produced) and a couple of megafactories in the UK producing the latest spec panels at much lower prices might make solar more popular, and even on winter days there will be small but useful output (on bright winter days you might get max output as the panels lose efficiency if they get too hot). There will be more on alternative energy from the govn so who knws...

Even if we did get these megafactories going the solar panels - especially if govt funded - would be far better at a solar farm or on the largest commercial buildings.  Installing solar farms is much much cheaper than individual houses. It also would benefit everyone rather than just those who own houses that are suitable for solar.

You may or may not be have a decent grasp of both the scale of the problem and the scale of the potential solutions.  

However.  

Why not encourage all.  If you decide to back one horse you’ll likely lose.  If you back all horses you will win.  Even if the return is a bit less initially. And in the bizarre way our lives work it might seem to be more wasteful short term but better in the long run because the war is more important than an individual battle.

In my mind - my extremely old mind - that if you set out to eat an elephant, you can only do so a very small bite at a time.  The idea of having every home with panels on them becoming a national solar farm in addition to all the other things seems to me to be a decent and more certain way that the elephant will eventually get eaten.  And there is always somewhere with clouds and other places sometimes without.  Why do we not have laws that all new builds have panels.  All that daft cash spent on electric cars.  We’re already committed to spending eye watering amounts on backing three-legged  horses at least helping everyone harvest the sun might not be such a bad idea. 

Krakkkers

Yes, its a dangerous world right now and countries will fight for resources and use that against us as is happening right now.
We are effectively at war with Russia.

Planeteer

Yes, Solar offers for household would have been great element of the new policy - and made a great difference to the country's energy autonomy, sustainability and economy - all at once. Very disappointing not to hear anything about it at all.

However, given the largest contribution (£100,000) to her campaign came from the wife of a BP executive and her low chances at the next national election, I guess it's easier for her to buy her popularity now by throwing our cash at it, even though as Keir Starmer rightly pointed out - quoting a BP executive - that if a windfall tax were introduced, no investments on their side would have been withdrawn.

Krakkkers

But future ones would have been reconsidered.

killzusall

Thanks for all the responses, just on the note of commercial solar farms being a more effective use of money, having your own panels (no matter how impractical to rollout etc.) would give you a direct benefit as you would use less energy from the grid, but if it was sourced from a commercial solution , you are still at the mercy of the energy provider as to what they charge, and as more and more things move to electric (car charging etc) that price will go up.

The means tested comment in my original post was to say that those who would find the cost of solar a drop in the ocean probably shouldn't qualify (and are likely to have already invested), for those who don't own their homes, then landlords should be offered it to put on residences, I appreciate it won't work for everyone.

The big energy companies will invest in renewables, but not because they want to be nice to us, they will still expect to charge for it and make good profits, the way that they set up their businesses to sell the energy to a sister company at a high rate, to then sell it to us will then argue with Ofgem that they are running at a loss so that they can bump it up will always make money.

uk1

In the end we have our cash taken from us to be given to others - or go to prison - or we are those others that get other people’s cash given to us. 

On many things our attitudes are often governed by which group you are in. 

FreeBear

[Deleted User] said:

There might be a reason why solar panels are built in China:  the average monthly salary of a qualified solar engineer is £1540 per month. Moreover, as reported to BEIS in Jun, ‘the UK has virtually no onshore semiconductor manufacturing capability’.

If there was money to be made from having a UK production facility for solar panels, then someone would have have already made the investment.

The semiconductor industry is also water & energy intensive and generates vast quantities of waste - A lot of it very toxic. Easier to off-shore the work and let someone else clean up the environmental mess.

sevenhills

New buildings should have free solar panels fitted. That would help climate change and boost house building.

Chrysalis

One thing is if the government ever fund more stuff like this, please do not pass it on to LA's to sort out, mine is terrible.

Post code lottery element shouldnt be a factor.

I think what needs doing for long term benefits, but not sure how its funded or implemented.

Every residential property double glazed, yes is a load of gutter quality rental properties using wooden framed single glazed windows.
Every property insulated where possible.
All roofs where viable, solar panelled.  Setup community solar panelled power storage for properties not suitable to benefit from.
All boilers that dont heat water live and as such are inefficient funded to be replaced.
In the cases of landlords they either need grants, tax breaks, or anything that prevents them from passing cost on to tenants.  Apply rental caps to LLs who dont take part of at least 30% below local market rate.
All new building required to be energy efficient.  If they not they break the law.

Ban sale of solid plate hobs.
Apply a disincentive for sale of large conventional ovens.

Introduce more widespread time of use tariffs.

Make mandatory fixed DD billing systems to tell customer if their monthly use is above previous levels or too high for their DD rate.
Make smart meters mandatory.

Cancelling HS2 and adding more windfall tax, would immediately provide over 100 billion of funding for this, another 30 billion by reintroducing the corp tax rise.  As always its political will not money thats the barrier.