Staggeringly inexpensive solar upgrade :-)

tim_p

Don’t stop at housing, apply the same rules to commercial developments too. Plenty of large roof areas on massive out of town retail parks. Obviously local infrastructure needs to be able to support overall generation capacity. 

New builds near us have a lot of south facing roofs along with others facing E & W, some have 2 panels, max 4. Yes it will help a little bit but it needs more panels. 

FreeBear

There is already a requirement to install EV charging points dependent on number of parking spaces. Having solar panels (and/or wind turbines) would go some way to reducing stress on the national grid.

Netexporter

If every house had a battery fitted, to effectively shift most domestic demand to the night, that would effectively give a huge increase to the capacity of the grid without much other change. The grid is at less than half capacity in the wee small hours.

daveyjp

"Obviously local infrastructure needs to be able to support overall generation capacity."

It is the obvious and its also the constraint to having solar panels on every single roof.  

tim_p

daveyjp said:

"Obviously local infrastructure needs to be able to support overall generation capacity."

It is the obvious and it’s also the constraint to having solar panels on every single roof.  

Or / and an EV in every driveway using the developer fitted charger!

Netexporter

daveyjp said:

"Obviously local infrastructure needs to be able to support overall generation capacity."

It is the obvious and its also the constraint to having solar panels on every single roof.  

Local storage could balance that out.

wrf12345

The cost of "free" solar plus battery versus the cost of not doing a nuclear plant or two would be an interesting calculation for our servants in government. There is also a good case for spreading "power plants" over as wide an area as possible for security in case of war.

BarelySentientAI

wrf12345 said:

There is also a good case for spreading "power plants" over as wide an area as possible for security in case of war.

Unless you were all individually capable of going off grid, it would make no difference.

ka7e

We also need to look at the orientation and designs of new housing developments. The "knocked table" layout of estates - used to reduce traffic speeds and alledgedly, more popular with buyers - means few houses have a South or East/West-facing roof. Roof designs with dormers and multiple gables rule out the uses of solar panels, as well. Nearly every new development in my area has had solar panels included on houses as part of their planning application, but theses have been amended to become costly optional extras by the time the properties are built.

bob2302

ka7e said:

We also need to look at the orientation and designs of new housing developments. The "knocked table" layout of estates - used to reduce traffic speeds and alledgedly, more popular with buyers - means few houses have a South or East/West-facing roof. Roof designs with dormers and multiple gables rule out the uses of solar panels, as well. Nearly every new development in my area has had solar panels included on houses as part of their planning application, but theses have been amended to become costly optional extras by the time the properties are built.

I don't follow this, It doesn't seem obvious that SW and SE are pointless.

I've seen plenty of roofs with panels and dormer windows. I've also seen panels on multiple gables facing in two different directions .