The U.K. government on Tuesday introduced new rules requiring developers to install heat pumps and solar panels in all new homes across England, in policymakers’ latest response to the economic fallout of the Iran conflict.
U.K. ministers say the Iran war and the largest supply disruption in the history of the oil market reinforces the need to leverage clean power as an energy security tool.
The Future Homes Standard — a set of new-build regulations for England from 2028 — will establish requirements to ensure homes are built with on-site renewable electricity generation, the majority of which is expected to be provided by solar power.
The rules will also see homes built with low-carbon heating, such as heat pumps and heat networks.
The government added that plug-in solar panels, which homeowners can install on balconies, would be available within shops over the coming months.
Seems wasteful not to cover one whole roof with panels (possibly replacing the sheet metal entirely) and connect them to one big inverter to power four homes. Splitting the needed amount of panels and inverters for every house wastes lots of installation work and makes every roof uglier.
Seems wasteful to require solar panels on homes shaded by trees or aligned the wrong way.
“Possibly replacing the sheet metal entirely” tells me you’ve never been to the UK…
Why not? look at all the sheet metal roofs in the picture!
Those are probably roof tiles.
The comment you were replying to was almost certainly being sarcastic, least not due to the exclamation mark instead of a question mark.
That too is a sign of Britishness! :)
Is the material relevant here? My point is, if the whole roof is covered by panels, you don’t need the redundant roof under the panels anymore.
Real answer is that solar panels themselves are barely structural, commonly relying on a steel or aluminium frame for support, they don’t offer any insulation and are easily damaged.
Ceramic roof tiles are a far better material that’s already widely used, so they mount the solar panels to the wooden frames with holes through the tiles themselves, maintaining the insulation of the tiles and allowing for any damaged solar panels to be easily replaced.
Why would you do that? It’s easier to install solar for one home than for multiple homes at once. If you mash together multiple tenants and homeowners into one energy system, you start having a lot of additional problems. They have to finance the installation together, they have to do contracts about who gets what amount of power when, they have to do billing, and so on. If you have your own solar system on your own roof, that’s easy. Everything else is simply not happening. So for example, what happens when one homeowner doesn’t want to have solar or can’t afford it?
Tbh, solar panels are not the ugly factor in thenpicture you posted.
So, whose roof is going to get drilled all over the place risking leaks in the future? Yours? Also, individual installation costs are lower, as you wouldn’t have to lay lines linking the houses, making and closing trenches, etc. One big inverter is a single point of failure. Again, in your house, or build a shed to house it?
What are you talking about? It’s a solved problem to install solar on an European roof. We have millions of installations without any leaks. Those companies do know what they are doing and have been for decades. And people have installed stuff on their roofs for centuries.
Everyone’s roof is getting drilled, says the new requirement - I’m suggesting reducing the drilling. Of course the three without installations would compensate the one carrying everything for them.
All houses are linked by the electrical grid already, no new trenches needed.