Ahead of the Scottish Budget on December 4, Scotland’s main trade body for the solar industry is calling on the Government to resume home solar loans.
In a letter to Scottish First Minister John Swinney, Josh King, chairman of Solar Energy Scotland (SES), urged the Scottish Government to bring back the interest-free loans available to Scottish households who have solar panels or battery energy storage systems at home (BESS) want to install. , after the previous arrangement was withdrawn without notice in June this year. Before this year’s abrupt withdrawal, eligible households could receive up to £11,500 in grants, as well as interest-free loans, to install air source heat pumps, solar panels and BESS. Although funding is still available for air-to-water heat pump installations, solar and BESS are no longer part of the scheme.
In his letter, King said: “We fully understand the budgetary pressures facing the Scottish Government and recognize that grant funding has been refocused on heat decarbonisation through measures such as heat pumps. However, solar and storage technologies are unique in their ability to provide households with rapid, tangible energy savings.”
“Solar and battery technologies are mature, proven and easily understood by consumers, making them ideal for government-backed lending, rather than cost-capped subsidies,” he added.
King notes that reintroducing interest-free financing would be a “minimal cost solution compared to the subsidies available for heating and textile measures”, which would also reduce the need to upgrade Scotland’s electricity networks.
SES calculations estimate that every £10 million allocated to interest-free solar and battery loans – all of which are repaid – would result in as many as 1,000 households installing these technologies. Each of these households would save an estimated £900 per year on their energy bills.
Reintroducing interest-free loans could spark a boom in rooftop solar
In June this year, just days before interest-free financing for home solar was abolished, the Scottish Government introduced major reforms to the system of permitted development rights for rooftop solar, eliminating the need for planning permission available before the installation of solar energy on roofs in homes became unnecessary. Under the new regulations, homeowners can install solar panels on flat roofs without a building permit, as long as the panels do not protrude more than one meter above the roof surface.
However, SES has also raised concerns about the advancement of rooftop solar for both homes and public buildings. It notes that the Scottish Government’s suggestion that new buildings be built to the Passivhaus ‘Classic’ energy efficiency standard is outdated, as the Passivhaus Classic energy efficiency standard has been replaced by the ‘Plus’ and ‘Premium’ forms.
Unlike Classic, both newer versions of the standard mandate the installation of renewable energy systems in new buildings. SES also criticized the government’s failure to mention solar energy in any form when proposing the new standard for buildings.
