UK plans photo voltaic ‘revolution’ for brand spanking new houses
by AFP Employees Writers
London (AFP) June 6, 2025
New houses inbuilt Britain may have rooftop photo voltaic panels “by default”, decreasing power payments and serving to to satisfy carbon-reduction targets, the Labour authorities introduced Friday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s celebration desires 1.5 million new houses constructed by 2029 amid a housing scarcity — a determine many specialists consider is optimistic.
Vitality Secretary Ed Miliband mentioned proposals introduced Friday mark “a monumental step in unleashing this rooftop revolution”.
The federal government mentioned: “New houses will even have low-carbon heating, akin to warmth pumps and excessive ranges of power effectivity, slicing folks’s power payments and boosting the nation’s power safety with clear, homegrown energy.”
It added in an announcement that “a typical present UK residence might save round �530 ($717) a 12 months from putting in rooftop photo voltaic.”
“The proposed Future Houses Customary would see constructing rules amended to explicitly promote photo voltaic for the primary time, topic to sensible limits with flexibility in place for brand spanking new houses surrounded by bushes or with a lot of shade overhead,” the federal government mentioned.
Atmosphere marketing campaign group Greenpeace welcomed the coverage, whereas urging the federal government to go additional.
“It is a nice instance of how local weather options cannot solely lower planet-heating emissions but additionally enhance folks’s lives,” its head of politics, Ami McCarthy, mentioned in an announcement.
“Now ministers must urgently reform the UK’s power system as a complete and cease gasoline from setting the value of electrical energy so that everybody, whether or not dwelling in a brand new construct or not, will get to benefit from the decrease payments that low cost, clear renewable energy can convey.”
Britain has set its sights on delivering a web zero carbon economic system by 2050.
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