If ever there were a time to double down on renewable energy, it is now.
Liquified natural gas (LNG) prices spiked after Iranian attacks on Qatar’s LNG facility at Ras Laffan earlier this month. Indeed, prices have nearly doubled since the start of the war. With gas providing the vast majority of heating in the UK – and gas-fired power stations still used to generate nearly 30 per cent of our electricity – a rise like this will put a terrible extra strain on household finances, at a time when we can least afford it.
Experts are warning that when the Government’s quarterly price cap comes in at the end of June, bills are expected to jump by £332 to an average of £1,972 a year.
But for those households which can afford them, or are eligible for grants, solar panels can significantly lessen the blow. Up to 5 million low-income homes can get grants for solar panels as part of the Government’s £15bn Warm Homes Plan, announced in January.
A typical home with rooftop solar panels could save around £500 a year on its energy bills, according to Government figures. With an average installation cost of around £7,000, that means the investment is typically paid off in eight to 15 years, depending on the efficiency of the panels – and how much sun they see.
And with the prospect of soaring bills those savings are likely to be considerably higher still in the coming years.
So after hitting record levels last year, household solar panel installations look set to soar again this year. Octopus Energy, the UK’s largest energy supplier, has seen a 54 per cent jump in solar panel sales since the start of the Iran conflict as households look to protect themselves from the scourge of soaring gas prices.
And this week, the Government said that most new homes in the UK will be required to have solar panels from later this year.
But the biggest change in solar policy is news that “plug-in” solar panels could be available to buy in the UK for the first time as soon as the summer, through retailers such as Amazon and Lidl.
At around £400, these panels are much cheaper than traditional rooftop solar and can be put on balconies, in outdoor spaces or fixed to an outside wall that catches the sun. Unlike traditional solar panels, which can be complex to install, these panels are plugged directly into a mains socket. They are particularly suited to people living in flats or rented homes and have the added advantage of being portable, so you can take them to your next home.
The Government estimates that a typical UK home could save £70 to £110 a year on their energy bills from plug-in solar, meaning a family could make their money back in around four years.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has linked the war with a need to swap to solar and wind power to reduce bills and improve energy security. “The Iran war has once again shown our drive for clean power is essential for our energy security so we can escape the grip of fossil fuel markets we don’t control,” he said last week.
Nothing new there then. But I have a sense that he sees in the Iran war an unimpeachable argument against the net zero naysayers, a watertight case for renewable energy that will resonate with voters like nothing else – namely through the benefit to their pockets.
Previously, the financial benefits of clean energy have been hard to discern thanks to the upfront costs of electricity grid updates and new solar and wind power plants plus the fact that many of the cost savings won’t be felt until further down the line.
It was never quite that simple – not least because huge investment would still have been needed to update our creaking electricity system even if we’d stuck to fossil fuels.
However, with gas prices soaring once again – before they even had a chance to recover from the spikes generated by the Ukraine war – it is becoming blindingly obvious that solar and wind power are the way to go.
Not everyone has got the memo, though. Kemi Badenoch and other figures on the right have shouted about exploiting North Sea gas instead. It may look like a good idea. But in reality it wouldn’t even work as a short-term fix.
Production has been falling for a long time – last year, production was about 20 per cent of what it was in 2000, near its peak. The Government’s own numbers say that 93 per cent of the oil and gas which could be extracted from the North Sea fields has been extracted. What is left is difficult and expensive to get at. It would take time to step up activity too, so would hardly help with the immediate bills facing householders. And even if that weren’t the case, the gas price is set internationally, so we would still be at the mercy of wars and other global events.
More to the point, the uptick in solar panel sales and huge interest in the plug-in panels coming to supermarkets soon suggest that many ordinary Britons have already made their minds up. Rebecca Dibb-Simkin, chief product officer at Octopus Energy, said last week that “we are seeing a fundamental shift in the national psyche when it comes to energy”.
The Government has a chance to capitalise on this and needs to hammer the point home – paving the way both for a huge increase in solar household installations and much larger wind and solar farms.
There are signs it is starting to do this, and that Miliband is on the case. But the Government more generally still needs to go much further, and educate the public about the benefits of solar power at every opportunity.
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