Dutch investment of EUR 174m will help UK homes go solar

Maas Capital, an investment arm of Dutch ABN AMRO Bank NV, has poured GBP 160 million (USD 207m/EUR 174m) into a solar modules installation programme in the UK that will provide electricity to low-income households in England and Wales.

The investment, secured thanks to the Department for International Trade (DIT), is the first part of a GBP-1-billion initiative that will help more than 800,000 homes in the UK to go solar. The photovoltaic (PV) equipment will be provided by UK residential solar installer Solarplicity, the latter said on Saturday.

Under the project, Solarplicity will collaborate with social housing providers that will enable tenants to get long-term guaranteed discounts on their electricity bills. The plan is to install PV panels at about 100,000 properties in the next 18 months, with the number reaching 800,000 in the following five years, the UK firm said. It estimates that social housing tenants will be able to lower their bills by an average of GBP 240 each year, which translates into up to GBP 192 million of combined total savings under the programme.

A large number of the planned PV systems will be for tenants in the North West. More than 290,000 homes in towns like Oldham and Bradford will be equipped with solar panels, 184,000 homes will go solar in the North East and Midlands and 154,000 around Leeds and Derby.

The initiative will create more than 1,000 jobs.

(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.294/EUR 1.089)

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