[CMOTD]

This is not a post about the merits of the climate change debate, regardless of which side you are on and I am not trying to start any political trouble. 
It is just a simple question really - the government is/was making various rules about EVs, phasing out gas boilers, compulsory heat pumps etc. So why on earth haven't they made the fitting of solar panels on every new building, commercial and domestic, a compulsory part of obtaining planning permission? It would add a very small percentage to the astronomical cost of the average new build, everybody would get some free electricity and, if you believe in such things, would massively help save the planet.

[Gordon Steadman]

It sounds as if you may expect some kind of logic or common sense from those we elect (who knows why).

You are old enough to know better.

[Kevan]

The only way 'we' can save the planet is to find a new one to move to and destroy.  We'll adapt over time like always...until AI gets shut of us that is

[KensRedZed]

Big corporations ,fuel/oil, and power companies are only interested in keeping everyone dependent on them. They're not in support of anyone being self sufficient. It's simply not profitable.

[Graham]

I am with you Brian, for example the benefits of privately installed solar panels is vastly underestimated, but as Ken says corporations want to control energy production. So self sufficient energy conservation in general is half hartedly supported.
We had solar panels and storage batteries fitted for some time now and during much of the summer weeks have Zero electric unit consumption from the grid.

[StuBeeDoo]

We live right in the middle of an early-1900s stone-built terrace of 16 properties.

Three years ago, I looked into getting an EV for my wife, as most of her car use is local.  The car wasn't going to be cheap, plus I was quoted something like £3k to run the cabling from the house to the garage and supply and install the hardware, but I could have lived with that. The whole upstairs of the house would have needed to have the floors up.  It's a 120-year-old house - can you guess where this is going...?

When I made enquiries to our electricity supplier, it transpired that because we are in the middle of the terrace, and the whole terrace is on a "looped feed", the whole terrace would need to have major work done on the electricity supply to each individual property.  The cost for this was estimated at over £5K per property.

Currently, the nearest public EV charging point to us is 4 miles away from us.

Moving away from internal combustion-engined cars just isn't an option around these parts, and is unlikely to ever be.

[KensRedZed]

I would ask the electric company "What's wrong with a 4-mile extension cord? Saves on a lot of upgrading".

[CMOTD]

Strangely enough the same question surfaced at a local election hustings last night. One of the candidates, who was also a county councillor, said that they had actually tried to enforce compulsory solar panels on new buildings but the government had stopped them from doing it.

If I was a cynical sort of person I might wonder whether the big energy firms have been lobbying against such a thing as it would eventually lead to a massive drop in their profits if all new houses no longer had to pay for their electricity!

[dazee]

Over this side the pond depending where you live there are some attractive subsidies to fund the cost of converting to solar.  Where that is not available such as where I live, it is possible to have a rental agreement with the power provider to install solar and battery bank to your house.  You pay monthly to rent the equipment, but after 10 years it is yours to keep.

The added benefit here is that we then also have some level of power still available during disasters such as earthquakes which otherwise disrupt the power supply.  And yes, an excess can still be sold back to the grid.

Just started this process for my house and waiting the survey on installation size.  Going to try get the garage covered too, be nice to have it generating the power to keep it cooler.

[Graham]

We had Solar panels fitted some years ago, and then a Storage battery more recently. In fact the savings we additionally get from the Storage Battery are equal to the Solar panels. So you do-not necessarily have to cover your roof with solar panels if you have a smallish house like ours.

And the fact that you don’t actually necessarily need to have Solar panels with the Storage Batteries is rarely promoted in the media. With the batteries you can make consumption savings just from the electricity taken from the grid alone.