Britain is preparing to put plug in solar panels on sale, giving households a new way to generate electricity from the same balcony currently occupied by one folding chair, three dead herbs and a bicycle nobody has admitted owning.
The Government announced that low cost panels are intended to become available in the UK for the first time. Families will be able to place them in gardens, on walls or balconies, then connect them to a mains socket. The national energy strategy has therefore acquired a domestic version, in which the country’s future depends partly on whether the extension lead can reach past the washing.
It is a pleasingly British form of energy security. Other countries have vast infrastructure, strategic reserves and complicated maps. Britain has a modest rectangle of solar cells leaning against a railing while somebody wonders why it is not getting more sun in March. The panel will provide power, but it will also provide a new reason to inspect the weather forecast with the intensity of a commodities trader.
The announcement forms part of a wider package responding to events in the Middle East and aimed at making the UK less dependent on fossil fuels. The Government also intends to bring forward its next annual renewables auction to July, inviting companies to invest in clean energy. Britain will therefore have two kinds of energy event: one involving major infrastructure and billions of pounds, and another involving a resident asking whether the panel counts as outdoor furniture.
For renters and flat owners without a suitable roof, plug in solar offers a simpler route into home generation. It may also transform the balcony from a place where household objects go to await a decision into a tiny power station with excellent views of the neighbour’s bins. The first time the panel produces electricity, its owner will experience the rare pleasure of saving money while standing beside a geranium that has contributed nothing.
No single panel will turn a home into an energy fortress, and nobody should expect the kettle to become geopolitically independent. But it could make ordinary outdoor space part of the clean power mission. Britain has spent years looking at balconies and seeing storage. It is now looking again and seeing infrastructure, provided the chair can be moved without triggering a national review, a consultation and a small inquiry into who put the bicycle there.
Source: GOV.UK.
