The UK government has just implemented new regulation that ensures all newly-built houses must have both solar panels and heat pumps installed, and it could save homeowners a significant amount of money each year.
Solar power has long been considered a money saving magic bullet, as while the initial cost of investment might be high, or more than pays itself back over time on the money you save from energy bills.
This is similar to the long-term benefits of electric cars, which like solar power not only benefit the environment and help curb climate change, but also avoid significant fuel costs and can even make you cash in certain circumstances.
What are the new house building regulations?
New home owners in the United Kingdom might not even have to deal with that early investment headache, however, as fresh government regulation from the Future Homes Standard has made it so that all houses built after 2028 must have solar panels on their roof in an area equivalent to 40 percent of the ground floor space, as per the BBC.
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In addition to this, no new homes will be build on the gas network, and will instead either be on the heat network or have a heat pump installed, and that combined with the solar panels could save you potentially thousands each year from electric bills.
The government has been trying to push through this change for a while now, but it appears to be timely following the Iran war, as an oil crisis has sent energy bills up by a considerable amount with most homeowners having no alternative.
"The Iran war has once against shown our drive for clean power is essential for our energy security," explained Labour's Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, "so we can escape the grip of fossil fuel markets we don't control."
In addition to this regulation change, plug-in solar panels that can be installed on places like balconies by homeowners will soon be available for purchase within supermarkets, giving everyone the option to save money without needing to go all our with a full install.
How much money will this save homeowners?
There's no concrete figure as to how much money this will save, as it depends on the amount of energy you use, the size of your home, your exposure to sunlight, and the current systems available within your house.
One specific scenario where it might not necessarily make that much of a difference is if you've got a relatively new and efficient boiler and are just installing a heat pump, as that would probably save you £100 ($134) at best and might not even save you anything at all.
Things really change for the better when you combine a heat pump with solar panels, however, and that only increases if you also implement a battery system — although this hasn't been included in the Future Homes Standard by the government.
For a new built house with both a heat pump and roof solar panels it's expected that you can save at least £1,000 ($1,337) each year, with that figure rising beyond £1,500 ($2,005) in the best case scenarios, especially if a battery is involved.
Existing homes that have solar panels and a heat pump installed are expected to save less, with the figures being within the hundreds instead of over a thousand, but that still more than makes up for the investment over time and is a worthwhile protection against volatile energy costs.