New rules give households right to sell solar power back to energy firms

Britain’s biggest energy companies will have to buy renewable energy from their own customers under new laws to be introduced this week. Homeowners who install new rooftop solar panels from 1 January 2020 will be able to lower their bills by selling the energy they do not need to their supplier. A record was set at noon on a Friday in May 2017, when solar energy supplied around a quarter of the UK’s electricity. However, solar panel owners are not always at home on sunny days to reap the benefit. The new rules will allow them to make money if they generate electricity for the grid. Some 800,000 householders with solar panels already benefit from payments under a previous scheme. However, the subsidies were controversially scrapped by the government in April, causing the number of new installations to fall by 94% in May from the month before. Labour accused the government last week of “actively dismantling” the solar industry. The sector will still struggle this summer as the change does not come in for another seven months, so homeowners have no incentive to buy panels this year.