Britain responds to Iran war energy shock by requiring solar panels and heat pumps in all new homes

https://feddit.org/post/27570552

Britain responds to Iran war energy shock by requiring solar panels and heat pumps in all new homes - feddit.org

> 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.
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?