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Solar PV Uptake Slow Due To Lack Of Awareness About Financial Support

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In our last blog post, we mentioned that a report produced by Baroness Jenny Jones in the summer of 2014 entitled ‘London is ready for a brighter future’, highlighted that only one household in 260 in London has installed solar PV. 

There are a number of reasons why solar PV adoption has been so slow in the capital, but a UK wide, YouGov survey, commissioned by Rexel (a distributor of energy products and services) would suggest that one of the major stumbling blocks is simply a lack of understanding of the financial support that is available for the installation of solar and generation of renewable energy.

The online survey with a sample size of 2,026 adults began by asking simple questions regarding concerns over energy price rises, cost of household bills and what actions they would take to help reduce energy bills. 

Leading on to more specific questions regarding solar it was obvious that many people think that they would be unable to afford the up-front and installation costs for solar PV. 

The most startling responses from the sample selection came when they were asked about the Feed-In Tariff (FiT) scheme, the government financial incentive for encouraging the uptake of household solar energy generation. An incredible 61% said they had absolutely no understanding of the FiT scheme what-so-ever, with a further 29% admitting they only had ‘some understanding’ of how the scheme works. Only 10% felt they fully understood the benefits of Feed-In Tariffs.

The overwhelming majority of those who took part in the survey felt that solar will play a part in the future of the UK’s energy generation. The main problem seems to be that they couldn’t understand how, as householders, they could be an integral part in that future. It seems loud and clear to us at Athena Electrical that a huge amount of people in the UK have absolutely no idea that when it comes to installing solar and generating their own renewable energy they have government support and financial incentives available to them. If this is achieved, then perhaps we can realise the ‘brighter future’ that Baroness Jones has predicted for London. 

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