Well, this is happening.
Ed Miliband just announced that basically every new house built in England will have solar panels slapped on the roof. The Energy Secretary called it "common sense" and threw around the magic number of £500 savings per year for families. Right. Because government savings estimates have such a stellar track record.
The Fine Print (There's Always Fine Print)
Here's how it works: developers will be forced to install panels unless your house happens to be in "deep shade" or falls under some other rare exemption. I'm already imagining the creative ways builders will try to wriggle out of this one. "Sorry, that tree casts a shadow for 20 minutes at 3 PM in December, so..."
The Home Builders Federation - bless them - said they support more solar panels but warned against "burdensome paperwork." Translation: they're terrified this will slow down Labour's ambitious plan to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029. Good luck with that timeline anyway.
Labour Goes Full Green Mode
This whole thing is part of something called the Future Homes Standard, which sounds like a sci-fi movie but is actually coming this autumn. There'll be a "transition period" for builders to adjust, which in government speak usually means "chaos for six months while everyone figures out what the hell they're supposed to do."
What's interesting is this goes way further than the Tories' version. Their plan let companies completely off teh hook if they couldn't hit the 40% rooftop coverage target. Labour's basically saying "nice try, but no."
And this comes just days after they scrapped planning rules to make heat pump installations easier. They're really going all-in on this net zero by 2050 thing.
The Opposition Isn't Having It
Kemi Badenoch called the net zero target "impossible" without either destroying our living standards or bankrupting the country. She's not wrong to be skeptical - these grand environmental promises have a way of hitting working families in the wallet first adn hardest.
Reform UK wants the whole target ditched entirely.
Their argument? It's pushing up energy bills for people who can least afford it. Which... fair point. There's something deeply ironic about forcing green measures that make energy more expensive in the name of helping families save money.
What This Actually Means for You
If you're buying a new build after this kicks in, congratulations - you're getting solar panels whether you want them or not. The £500 annual savings claim sounds nice, but I'd take that with a massive grain of salt. Government estimates on energy savings are about as reliable as weather forecasts for next month.
The real question is who's paying for all this upfront. Spoiler alert: it's probably going to be factored into house prices somehow. Because developers aren't known for absorbing extra costs out of the goodness of their hearts.
Look, solar panels aren't inherently bad. But mandating them on virtually every new home feels like the kind of top-down policy that sounds great in Whitehall meetings and gets messy fast in the real world.
We'll see how this plays out when the details drop this autumn.
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