London mayor’s group’s solar panel plan ‘quietly shelved’ – Conservative Party

A City Hall plan to unite Londoners to buy solar panels at a discount is riddled with delays and flaws, a local Conservative party has said.

One woman from Bexley said she was annoyed by panels that didn’t work.

Conservative London MP Emma Best said the plans had been “quietly shelved”.

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London denied this, but said the delay had been caused by the supplier going into liquidation.

The Solar Together Group Buying Program was introduced in 2017 and supported by Labor Mayor Sadiq Khan to allow multiple homeowners clubs to work together to buy solar panels at a discounted price.

The Conservative Party says that by early 2023, City Hall had received 1,456 complaints from customers dissatisfied with the service provided by GET-UK.

Solar Together, also known as Green Energy Together-UK, said it was “actively assisting customers affected by the liquidation of GET-UK”.

Amy Lee, from Bexley, south-east London, said after installing the panels in 2021 it was discovered there were no batteries in them and she didn’t have an installation certificate, so her home insurance was invalidated.

“We paid just under £2,000 as a deposit and are still waiting to pay the rest once everything is settled,” Ms Lee said.

“Solar Together is telling us to wait, but it’s been a year,” she added.

Ms Lee called for an investigation into how the scheme was run.

She also said she was not notified after her first supplier, GET-UK, went bankrupt.

None of London’s 32 councils are included in the “active scheme”, according to the Solar Together website, which also serves local authorities outside London. Mr Bexley is listed in ‘Past Plans’.

This means that residents of the capital cannot currently register, but were able to register in the past.

The London Conservative Party said GET-UK had been appointed as the sole contractor on the scheme.

London AM’s Ms Best said: ‘After seven years of failure, Sadiq Khan has quietly shelved his flagship Solar Together scheme.

“This plan was a disaster from the beginning due to the incompetent leadership of the Mayor and his team.”

Liberal Democrat AM Hina Bokhari also said the plan was a “disaster from start to finish”, but added that this would not deter London from taking action on climate change.

A spokesperson for the mayor said Solar Together had not been “scrapped” or “shelved.”

“Following the conclusion of Stage 5 of Solar Together, a comprehensive assessment is being carried out to ensure the Greater London Authority continues to provide the best possible solar energy support to Londoners for years to come. ” they said.

They added that the scheme “supported the installation of more than 24,000 solar panels on more than 3,400 homes in London”.

“Some customers of Solar Together’s stages four and five experienced an unacceptably low level of service as one of the scheme’s suppliers went into liquidation.”

They said this “impacted Solar Together customers across the country.”

The Mayor’s team has “stepped in” to ensure installations in London “are completed and customers are reimbursed”, adding that the process is “now nearing completion”.

A Solar Together spokesperson said the company is actively assisting customers affected by the GET-UK liquidation and offering solutions to issues such as recovering deposits and completing unfinished installations. Ta.

“The majority of GET-UK customers’ issues have already been resolved and customers with outstanding issues are on their way to resolution with alternative installers guided by Solar Together,” they added. Ta.

The Green Party has also been contacted for comment.