UK government launches plug-in solar panels to help with energy bills amid safety and landlord concerns

LONDON — Andy Burnham’s government desperately wants to find ways to help Brits save money on soaring energy bills.

The latest idea: Getting them to put mini solar panels on their balconies so they can generate their own power.

From Thursday, the tech — already a success story in countries like Germany — will be available to buy in high street stores and install in U.K. properties for the first time. Plug-in solar panels are “a simple, affordable way for households to take control of their energy bills and start saving straight away,” Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said.

But to get there, ministers face a clutch of problems, including uncooperative landlords, safety fears, and hundreds of pounds in upfront costs.

Regulation, regulation, regulation

The technology was badged as a simpler solution for renters or other people without space at home for traditional rooftop panels.

People who want to install the kit may need permission from landlords, freeholders or councils, therefore. And some are already not playing ball.

One housing association, Sovereign Network Group — which manages 86,000 homes across London and the south of England — said it has a blanket ban on letting residents install plug-in solar in the buildings it manages.

“While solar panels may be installed through our planned retrofit programme, we do not permit plug-in or ‘plug and play’ solar panels in SNG properties,” said Carol Bailey, SNG’s building and occupational safety director, citing potential “electrical safety risks.”

Claire Hibbit, corporate affairs director at another housing association in England, Notting Hill Genesis, which manages over 60,000 properties, said they wanted to help tenants use cleaner power — before listing all the hurdles tenants would need to clear before plugging in solar panels: ensuring they were bought from a reputable outlet, holding an electricity safety certificate, safe installation, no extra fire risk, the right weight for a balcony, and not breaking any rules governing conservation areas.

A third, L&Q, which manages over 105,000 properties, said it welcomed the potential of plug-in panels to help cut bills. But its Director of Health and Building Safety Steve Pettitt added: “As this technology is new, we're still considering the detail, including how it can be used safely in residents’ homes.”

“Plug-in solar panels send electricity in the opposite direction in your property’s wiring,” said Luke Osborne, technical director of the charity Electrical Safety First. His organization has “concerns plug-in solar panels may damage older devices in people's homes which protect people from electric shock,” he warned.

Another trade association, the Electrical Contractors Association, warned ahead of the government's roll out that plug-in solar could “overload circuits — creating a risk of fire and electrical shocks — without careful checks by qualified electricians.”

‘Robust’

The government insisted plug-in solar is not intended for every home, and has been made legal only after “rigorous, independent safety testing,” using panels “safe and compatible with U.K. wiring.”

“As a government, we are quite confident that the safety case is robust, and the additional work that we've done to assure ourselves of that is giving us the confidence to be able to legalize these in the U.K. and assure ourselves that they will be safe for people in their homes,” added Energy Minister Martin McCluskey.

He said he had written to landlords to make the case for plug-in solar and hoped “that would be looked on favorably” by them. The government has flagged a detailed safety checklist as part of the roll-out.

The government reckons that each piece of kit could produce enough power to cover 20 percent of average household energy use, according to an announcement from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero Wednesday.

Ministers said the “easy-to-install” panels could save homes up to £110 per year in energy bills, part of Andy Burnham’s effort to give people some “breathing space” on the cost of living. The promise came on the same day the regulator announced household energy bills are set to rise once again from October, driven up by the war between the U.S., Israel and Iran.

Saving money (slowly)

Plug-in solar panels also come with a hefty upfront price, even as the government promotes them as a way — over time — to save money.

As of Wednesday, one U.K. online retailer, flagged by McCluskey as a potential provider of plug-in solar, had set the price for a piece of kit at £699. The government believes the price of a single panel will settle, thanks to market competition, between £400 and £600, the minister said.

This means, as the U.K. heads into higher energy prices this fall, the £110 annual savings proposed off the back of plug-in solar would not help voters start recouping the costs until the end of the decade.

McCluskey ruled out government support to cover the upfront costs of the tech, such as schemes that already exist for other clean power like heat pumps and larger-scale rooftop solar panels. Ministers could revisit the issue in the future, he added.

Even at a higher price of between £500 and £700, the so-called “payback period” is “still lower than you would get from rooftop solar,” McCluskey later insisted.