Increasing self-consumption of solar PV

The project will deliver support and advice to over 7000 low income and vulnerable households with PV (Solar Photovoltaic) technology on their homes to maximise use of the solar energy and reduce energy bills.

Working with social housing providers the project will identify properties in three locations in England, develop and disseminate easy to understand information, provide intensive support where needed, and provide small measures to support with optimising benefits of the system.

Information leaflets will be complemented by a suite of videos and web-based resources. Complementary bespoke training on PV and battery storage will be offered to front line workers operating in the target areas.

Households receiving information can seek further support via telephone, advice clinics or home visits. NEA will conduct an independent evaluation of the PV system performance and small measures provided to appropriate households. The project will establish the usefulness of these technologies in maximising PV energy use and reducing energy bills.

In addition, NEA will identify any misbehaving PV systems, assessing the impact of this failure on bills, and investigate barriers to repairs, reporting and discussing this with the relevant system owners. The long-term performance of systems will be assessed and downtime due to faults investigated. The impact of ownership models (social landlord or ‘rent a roof’ / existing servicing agreement) will be considered.