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A proposed law requiring all new homes to have solar panels suggested by Cheltenham’s MP has been rejected.
The New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill, brought by Liberal Democrat Max Wilkinson, was debated in parliament on Friday during its second reading.
The so-called “Sunshine Bill” could help the country tackle the “twin crises” of the cost of living crisis and climate change, Mr Wilkinson said.
But while minister for housing and planning Matthew Pennycook said the government was “extremely sympathetic”, it was rejected by officials.
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Similar changes have been signalled by the government which could become part of new building regulations to be amended later this year.
People seem to be missing something important about this suggestion:
In a market system where solar pv is an option, per-residence efficiency and effectiveness matters a lot and the objections raised here makes sense. But a mandate that all new builds come with solar pv changes that logic fundamentally.
You are now in the domain of grid-scale distributed energy production, grid resilience, and production scaling that will force panel prices much, much further down. This is an infrastructure change and should be considered in those terms.
I would personally have started with residential energy storage for the same reason, but honestly both should happen anyway.