Solar body urges government to expand boiler scheme and mandate new panels after record installations
The government should expand the upgrade scheme for boilers with higher grants and mandate solar panels in new homes following record installations this year, the UK’s solar standards body has argued.
MCS is calling on Downing Street to make solar panels, heat pumps and battery storage compulsory installations in all new homes from 2025 under the new Future Homes Standard – which sets requirements for construction.
“We need to continue to push this expansion to meet our shared national ambitions to reach net zero by 2050. More consumers have the confidence to invest in small-scale renewables now than ever, but we have to make that transition even easier,” said chief executive Ian Rippin.
His comments follow a marked shift towards renewable technology amid the rising cost of energy to heat homes, with a record number of renewable technologies including heat pumps and solar panels installed in people’s houses during the first six months of this year.
More than 120,000 renewable installations were completed from January to June, according to the latest report from MCS – a 62 per cent jump on this time last year, putting the UK on track for nearly a quarter of a million green upgrades this year.
This has been chiefly driven by solar panels, with 2023 the first year to average more than 20,000 solar panel installations per month, and the first to see more than 3,000 heat pumps installed per month.
In June, 27,791 certified installations recorded on homes and businesses across the UK, bringing the total for the first half of the year to 122,155.
The previous record for renewable installations was more than a decade ago in 2012, when households raced to get solar panels before cuts to the feed-in-tariff incentive scheme kicked in.
Small-scale renewable energy installations on homes and businesses across the UK now have a total installed capacity of 4GW – meaning it could power as much as 13 per cent of the country’s current overall energy demand of 29.4GW per day on average over the last year.
There were 17,920 heat pump installations in the first six months of 2023, a figure only rivalled by a rush to install heat pumps before the end of the Renewable Heat Incentive subsidy scheme in March 2022.
Heat pump installations in England and Wales have been eligible for £5,000-6,000 government grants since May last year under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.
Energy security targets set by the government include 70GW of solar capacity by 2035 and to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028 – which the industry remains well short of with 17GW of solar generation and less than 20,000 heat pumps installed last year through the upgrade scheme.
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “These figures build on our multi-billion-pound investment to improve energy efficiency across the country.
“We’ve invested £6.6bn upgrading 2.5m homes and 47 per cent now have a rating of C or above. Our Great British Insulation Scheme will also see an additional 300,000 homes benefit by extending the legal duty on suppliers to help customers insulate their homes.
“We are fully focused on meeting our aim of 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028, having offered grants of £5,000 and £6,000 towards the cost.”