There is a moral and an economic case for installing solar panels, but the latter has become even starker in the wake of an astonishing study that suggests they could cut nearly a quarter off of some energy bills.
The report, published by the Resolution Foundation, suggests that people could save as much as 24 per cent off of the cost of their energy bills were they to have solar panels installed, which adds up to hundreds of pounds per year on average.
This is the headline figure that reports on the study, such as the one by The Guardian, focuses on most, but it is important to contextualise how much that quarter is and how pivotal solar panels could be for millions of British households.
Solar And The End Of Fuel Poverty
The Resolution Foundation, founded in 2005, focuses primarily on research into measures to help people who are on low or modest incomes, with its most prominent work focusing on wage stagnation and the living wage.
The 24 per cent figure that has been commonly quoted is therefore specific to the 3.6m “fuel-poor” families in the UK, defined by the Resolution Foundation as any household that spends over 10 per cent of their disposable income on energy bills.
This equates in their research to as much as £440 per year, a significant saving for any household but particularly significant to families who proportionately spend more of their income on energy.
When measured by savings per pound spent, adding solar panels saves more money per pound (7p-per-year) than cavity-wall insulation, one of several installations covered by the Great British Insulation Scheme.
A third of fuel-poor families (1.2m people) could escape fuel poverty through solar panel savings, and the report was clear that households with lower annual incomes than the national average have the most to gain from solar panel installations, particularly since unused energy can be sold back to the National Grid.
Redressing The Energy Imbalance
The motivation for the study is the fact that the households that would benefit the most are also the ones which are able to access solar panels the least due to how the costs are primarily paid for upfront.
Whilst the energy solar panels provide is free and sometimes can earn a household money, the Resolution Foundation found that policy support and grants for solar panels have reduced the proportion of solar panels installed in poor areas from 35 per cent of all installations to 21 per cent.
A solution that they recommend is to treat solar as akin to heat pumps (where families can receive a £7500 grant to have one installed under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme) insulation upgrades and other grants and initiatives to save energy and money.
Combined with the proposed “rooftop revolution” to triple solar energy capacity and make it easier for households to personally benefit, solar energy has a gigantic role to play in reducing dependence on fossil fuels, decarbonising heat and energy, and saving people a significant sum of money in the process.
