The government has unveiled £15bn of spending on solar panels and other green energy upgrades, after publishing its Warm Homes Plan.
The plan is to triple the number of homes with solar, in what the government dubbed a “rooftop revolution”
The government will achieve this aim by working with banks and lenders to offer loans with either no interest or low interest.
For example low-cost households could receive support to cover installing solar panels and batteries, which usually costs between £9,000 and £12,000.
The government has targeted installing 450,000 heat pumps a year by 2030.
The plan will split funding as follows:
- £5 billion towards insulation, solar, BESS and heat pump installations for low income households
- £2 billion for low-cost, zero-interest loans towards installations
- £2.7 billion to expand the Boiler Upgrade Scheme for a further year, to 2029/30
- £1.1 billion for heat networks
- £2.7 billion Warm Homes Fund for innovative financing, for example ‘green’ mortgages, which give better interest rates to energy efficient homes.
The current Boiler Upgrade Scheme grants homeowners in England and Wales up to £7,500 towards replacing a fossil fuel boiler with a heat pump.
The War Homes Plan was first touted in 2024, which vowed to tackle the “national emergency” of rising energy bills, as they spiked following Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022.
Reaction to follow…