A cross-party group of MPs have joined environmental and fuel poverty advocacy groups to call on the Government to make solar panels mandatory on all new build homes.
35 Parliamentarians from the Liberal Democrat, Conservative, Labour and Green parties have signed an open letter to Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook alongside more than a dozen fuel poverty charities and environmental organisations. The letter relates to the Future Homes Standard, new building regulations that are due to come into effect next year.
The MPs and charities state that it is essential that all new homes are built to standards that ensure low bills and minimal carbon emissions. They add that “We should not be building houses in the next five years that will have to be retrofitted, at much greater cost, five or ten years later.”
A recent report by The MCS Foundation found that installing solar panels as well as heat pumps and batteries in new homes would result in thousands of pounds of savings for homeowners. For instance, the average cumulative energy savings from solar panels, heat pump and battery storage installations on a 3-bed semi-detached house would be £46,612 over the loan term of a 25-year mortgage. These savings far exceed the upfront investment required to install these technologies in new homes.
David Cowdrey, Acting Chief Executive of The MCS Foundation, said: “Mandating developers to put solar panels and heat pumps in all new build homes will not only save households thousands of pounds, it will also massively boost the domestic renewables workforce, at no cost to the Treasury.
“Years of delay and uncertainty have held back the shift to clean energy and heating. We should not be building homes next year and the year after that will have to be retrofitted in ten years’ time, and so the Government must now introduce the long-awaited Future Homes Standard, with a mandate for renewable technology, without delay.”
