Lower housebuyers’ bills with solar panels on newbuild roofs, ministers urged

Housebuilders should lower buyers’ bills with solar panels on every roof, renewable energy charity and company chiefs have urged.

The seven chief executives and directors have called on Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to back the Sunshine Bill when MPs debate it in the new year.

If MPs back the draft legislation, which the Liberal Democrats’ Max Wilkinson tabled for a debate on January 17, it would bake into law a standard for newbuilds to come with solar panels on their roofs.

Mr Wilkinson said the proposal is “just really, really obvious” amid efforts to reduce carbon emissions and lower costs.

“Taking this one simple step would pay back to new homeowners, via lower energy bills, in just a few short years, helping protect homeowners from high and fluctuating energy bills,” according to the letter.

It continued: “Pressure on the wider grid would be reduced and the likely outcome would be a reduction in the country’s emissions too, in line with climate change targets.”

Its signatories, among them Ecotricity chief executive Asif Rehmanwala and E.On Next director of residential newbuild Matthew Hart, also wrote: “The twin crises of high energy bills and climate change present this country with many challenges, but there are also a number of solutions that could be relatively easily implemented.

“One of those solutions is the inclusion of solar energy on newbuild residential accommodation.”

Mr Wilkinson said: “Following the shortest day of the year (Saturday), it’s time the Government finally commits to a sunnier future.”

He told the PA news agency: “One of the things that I think is just really, really obvious is that when we’re building new homes, they should be built to high standards of energy efficiency and that they should include renewable energy generation, because that’s good for the planet, but also, it’s really, really good for people’s bills.

“We all know that we’ve had the energy bills crisis over the last few years and fuel bills for households remain stubbornly high, so it seems obvious that we should put solar panels on the roofs of houses, so those bills are going to be lower.”

The MP for Cheltenham in Gloucestershire described adding solar panels to the tune of “a few thousand pounds” as “marginal” against the cost of building a property, which “pays back to the new homeowner within five or six years anyway, so it really is a win-win”.

Asked how far the Sunshine Bill – formally known as the New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill – could go in tackling climate change, Mr Wilkinson replied: “There are the big international impacts that you’re talking about on climate change, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make those marginal gains locally where we can, particularly when they can have a really profound positive impact on people’s day-to-day lives.”

He said: “All I want this Christmas is for the Government to support the Sunshine Bill. Lower energy bills would be the perfect gift not just for me, but for the nation.”

A Government spokesperson said in an October press release that they “want solar panels on as many new homes as possible, because they are a vital technology to help cut bills for families, boost our national energy security, and help deliver net zero”.

But the press release confirmed a final decision on the amount of solar panels that new homes will typically be expected to include is “yet to be made”, and that it is “a fundamental principle of building regulations that we do not constrain innovation by prescribing any specific technology”.

Mr Miliband previously said he was “very sympathetic” to Mr Wilkinson’s proposal.

Asked about plans for “new homes to come with solar panels on the roof as standard”, Mr Miliband told the Commons last Tuesday: “I am very, very sympathetic to this, and we are in discussions with our colleagues across Government and watch this space.”