Should taxpayers pay for solar panels to be installed on homes?

Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay to install solar panels on homes, according to a man who changed the law to make it easier for flat owners to access clean energy.

Reg Platt started Emergent Energy in 2016 after spotting an overlooked area of electricity network rules. Working with Ofgem to change regulations in 2023, the start-up has now given flat owners more power to install solar panels in a bid to speed up efforts to decarbonise homes and reach UK net-zero targets.

Emergent Energy is now working with Hackney Council to install solar panels across 28 blocks of flats to supply 800 residents with discounted energy.

The firm’s model creates microgrids to help tenants put panels on their homes, rather than being restricted to communal areas before the regulation change. That lets residents save on bills and receive cash back from the grid’s savings.

Platt said the model has the potential to scale up and make accessing clean energy more equal than before. Leveraging commercial finance also offers the potential to speed up the UK’s green transition and insulate the vital work from changing political attitudes – such as Reform UK’s pledge to axe net-zero funding in DOGE-style cuts.

“The core problem that I was interested to solve when I founded the company was: how do we fund decarbonisation of housing without relying on government handouts?” said Platt, who previously worked for the IPPR think tank before putting his regulatory knowledge into action.

He added: “The top level is we shouldn’t be funding it from taxpayers’ money. You shouldn’t have to do that. Solar, in particular, is cheaper than fossil fuel energy in so many parts of the world, and it’s on these dramatic cost reduction pathways. It’s been doing it for the last 30 years, and it has no sign of stopping. It just gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.”

Platt said the issue preventing people accessing solar power is one of inequality and market design.

The cost barrier of paying for solar panels can be insurmountable for low-income families even if they would benefit from cheaper energy bills.

Meanwhile, Emergent Energy worked with Ofgem to create the ‘Regulatory Sandbox’ in 2023 which allows firms to test solutions live in the energy market.

From there, Emergent, which is funded by the Fair By Design Venture Fund conceived by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Big Society Capital, investor Ian Peters and grant funders, has been able to establish microgrids within residential housing developments.

“It’s been a very unusually long journey for a startup because we basically had to change a piece of electricity regulation for the business to work. We’re the only company that’s ever done that,” said Platt.

Read more:

• Communities that build solar panels and wind farms should get cheaper bills, says Labour minister
• Fit all new homes with solar panels to slash energy bills by hundreds, government told
• The government said it would upgrade social housing to help renters with energy bills. It’s not going well

The UK is currently on a mission to retrofit homes to slash carbon and energy emissions. 

With possibly the oldest and leakiest housing stocks in western Europe, 29 million homes will need retrofitting before 2050, according to the UK Green Building Council.

Part of that task will inevitably involve installing solar panels to move away from the fossil fuels-centred energy system that is driving the climate crisis.

Progress, so far, has been slow.

The government’s £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan is progressing but, so far, just under £1.3bn has been distributed to 144 local authority projects. Energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband announced last week that most new-build homes will be built with solar panels as part of measures to be laid out in the upcoming Future Homes Standard.

The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund started under the previous Conservative government has seen 7,000 electricity related measures, including solar panels, installed on social homes since 2021.

Emergent’s model looks to bypass the need for government cash.

“There’s been, in the past, major political pressure to cut spending as we are now seeing again with Farage and the kind of attack on net-zero,” said Platt.

He added: “The guiding ethos should be the absolute minimum amount of public money should be spent and it should be that you use the market, open up the market to enable this financing to happen.

“Otherwise you end up in these situations when the whole thing’s at risk of getting derailed again. Because, the country is not in a good financial situation.

“I think what people increasingly understand in the councils and social housing providers is that there is not enough money there to get to the net-zero requirements. If the spending commitments are maintained and continue, there just simply is not enough money to meet the total level of investment that is needed to upgrade all these properties to net-zero emissions. Ultimately, the funding is going to have to come from somewhere else.”

Instead the power must lie within communities, said Platt.

In the future, Emergent hopes to connect microgrids, install heat pumps, electrical vehicle chargers and add battery storage.

Platt said: “There are five million flats in the country and there are two million flats in social housing and solar panels have historically never been put on flats. There’s just a huge opportunity there to scale up what we’ve done and deliver a really substantial chunk of the zero-carbon electricity we need to help us deliver our emission goals for the country.”

The “breakthrough model” has won a prestigious Ashden Award – the annual awards that celebrate pioneering climate change solutions.

Emergency Energy was hailed for its impact alongside five other winners across the UK and the Global South.

Other winners, announced on Wednesday (11 June), include Repowering London – a project upskilling young people to bring clean energy to London communities – and Cotality, which provides a data analysis platform to help housing providers retrofit properties.

Outside the UK, a Kenyan project to clean up cookstoves and Indian and Nigerian solar projects were among the winners.

Ashden CEO Dr Ashok Sinha said: “In a world often clouded by fear and frustration, these inspiring organisations offer bold, practical visions that can unite people across political and cultural divides,” said Dr Sinha.

“Without exception, Ashden winners combine passion for a better world with a unique ability to deliver real-world change.”

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