Peterborough has highest percentage of homes with solar panels in UK

According to offsite eco developer Project Etopia 11.1 per cent of Peterborough’s 81,901 households (9,088) have solar panels on their properties.

Stirling at 10.1 per cent comes second, followed by a drop to 7.3 per cent for Wrexham and Boston in joint third.

The national average is a shade under three per cent.

Peterborough has had a mixed history with solar panels. Controversial plans for energy parks with solar and wind turbines across 900 acres of farmland never progressed and ended up costing the city council more than £3 million.

Similarly, the council is still trying to recoup all of the £23 million it loaned social enterprise Empower Community Management LLP in December 2014 to install solar panels on more than 7,700 rooftops of housing association homes across the country, including 426 in Peterborough.

The deadline for the repayment of the loan has been extended multiple times, but the council has been able to charge interest on top of an additional monthly fee to reclaim some of its money.

This has netted it more than £3 million so far.

Project Etopia analysed the latest feed-in tariff statistics from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to find out which towns and cities have the highest proportion of ‘green homes’.

Solar is only one type of renewable energy that homeowners can turn to but it makes up the vast majority of eco installations on residential properties. The data was published for the final time recently because of changes to the feed-in tariff regime.

Joseph Daniels, CEO of Project Etopia, said: “Britain has never been greener and these towns and cities are trailblazers who we should all look to for inspiration.

“However, in the best performing town, Peterborough, more than 88 per cent of households still lack solar, so there is plenty more to be done.

“Policy makers and suppliers need to examine why so many areas have particularly weak levels of solar installations while others sprint way ahead. The UK might not be the sunniest place on Earth, but the technology has improved enough over the past 20 years for it to be worthwhile anywhere in the country.”