Local authorities in the UK are outpacing private homeowners in their rates of rooftop solar adoption, according to research* by British solar company GRYD Energy.

5.5% of all residential property owned or leased by councils (99,146 homes) now have rooftop solar installed compared with 5% of privately owned homes in the UK.

Local authorities in Wales and Scotland are reporting the highest rates of progress, with 8.4% of all council-owned homes in Wales and 7.9% in Scotland now benefitting from rooftop solar, compared with 4.9% in England and 3.8% in Northern Ireland.

Across the UK, the highest-performing regions are North West Wales and North East Wales where more than one in five council-owned homes (23.6% and 21.0%) have solar panels installed. The next highest region is Scotland’s Aberdeen and North East, where 13.5% of council homes now have rooftop solar.

Conversely, just 1.8% of council homes in London currently have rooftop solar installed. Low proportions of solar-powered council homes are also reported in Southern Wales (0.3%), South West Wales (1.9%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (2.1%).

“Many councils are already under immense financial pressure, so the fact that on a national scale they are outpacing private homeowners in their rooftop solar rollout is remarkable,” says Mohamed Gaafar, CEO and co-founder of GRYD Energy.

“But we’re still talking about very small numbers here and no one is really winning this race. Rates of rooftop solar deployment need to increase dramatically across the entire public and private housing landscape if we are to achieve the government’s clean energy targets by 2030.”

“Many councils own thousands of residential properties. Imagine the impact and momentum that could be unlocked to tackle the clean energy transition if councils were supported and incentivised by the government to deploy rooftop solar to those portfolios at scale.”