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Local authorities in the UK are outpacing private homeowners in their rates of rooftop solar adoption, according to research* by British solar company GRYD Energy. 

5.5% of all residential property owned or leased by councils (99,146 homes) now have rooftop solar installed compared with 5% of privately owned homes in the UK.

Local authorities in Wales and Scotland are reporting the highest rates of progress, with 8.4% of all council-owned homes in Wales and 7.9% in Scotland now benefitting from rooftop solar, compared with 4.9% in England and 3.8% in Northern Ireland.

Across the UK, the highest-performing regions are North West Wales and North East Wales where more than one in five council-owned homes (23.6% and 21.0%) have solar panels installed. The next highest region is Scotland’s Aberdeen and North East, where 13.5% of council homes now have rooftop solar.

Conversely, just 1.8% of council homes in London currently have rooftop solar installed. Low proportions of solar-powered council homes are also reported in Southern Wales (0.3%), South West Wales (1.9%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (2.1%).

“Many councils are already under immense financial pressure, so the fact that on a national scale they are outpacing private homeowners in their rooftop solar rollout is remarkable,” says Mohamed Gaafar, CEO and co-founder of GRYD Energy.

“But we’re still talking about very small numbers here and no one is really winning this race. Rates of rooftop solar deployment need to increase dramatically across the entire public and private housing landscape if we are to achieve the government’s clean energy targets by 2030.”

“Many councils own thousands of residential properties. Imagine the impact and momentum that could be unlocked to tackle the clean energy transition if councils were supported and incentivised by the government to deploy rooftop solar to those portfolios at scale.”

As debate intensifies around the recent approval of several large-scale solar farms across the UK, Gaafar says boosting deployment of rooftop solar could displace the need for many of these large-scale projects.

“Around 250,000 homes are built in the UK each year. That’s more than eight million square meters of prime solar roof space created annually – or 2,000 acres of solar farms that wouldn’t need to be built.

“Achieving the government’s ambitious green energy targets doesn’t need to be a contentious debate. Solar farms will certainly make an important contribution to Britain’s clean energy future, but we are missing a vital piece of the puzzle by overlooking the immense solar potential of Britain’s residential rooftops.

“When scaled, these independent systems can help millions of Brits to become energy independent and significantly reduce the burden on the national grid. They also don’t come with the potential widescale disruption for local residents that solar farms do or require the huge investment needed to upgrade transmission lines and distribution networks.

Gaafar notes that the right policy conditions need to be present to support higher rates of council rooftop solar uptake.

“With the closure of the Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) scheme to new applicants in 2019, councils lost an important incentive to install solar on new-builds,” says Gaafar.

“Despite this, our research shows that the buy-in from councils is there. They want to invest in rooftop solar systems to prepare their housing stock for a zero-carbon future and insulate their tenants from the energy market volatility that has pushed so many Brits into fuel poverty in recent years.

“But the high upfront costs to install the hardware have been a clear barrier for local authorities and private homeowners alike.”

GRYD is working to solve this through a unique subscription model that sees the business fund and manage the solar hardware for its entire 25-year life cycle. This allows local authorities and property developers to install rooftop solar systems with zero hardware costs and homeowners to start saving on their energy bills from day one.

“Last year, Ed Miliband said he wanted the government to unleash a solar rooftop revolution. The government must now act on that ambition and put serious investment and policy support behind helping local authorities and homeowners to adopt the technology, become energy independent and reduce the burden on the national grid.”