Fury over the fading benefits of solar power
THEY were promoted as the ecofriendly way to generate both electricity and cash at the same time.
But now thousands of homeowners who bought solar panels have complained that they’re not reaping the rewards they were promised.
The Financial Ombudsman Service has received 2,000 complaints and Barclays has put aside millions to compensate those who took on loans to pay for mis-sold panels.
Martyn James, from complaints website Resolver, said: ‘The mis-selling of solar panels has been going on for years. No one fully knows the scale of the problems but it is definitely one of the top ten scandals of our time. The people who bought solar panels are not greedy – they were genuinely trying to do a good thing by being self-sufficient.’
When Brian Thompson, from Gateshead, was contacted by a salesman from supplier PV Solar UK, which went bust in 2017, he told him he did not want to take on a loan as he was preparing for retirement. But he says the salesman persuaded him to take out a £10,000 loan with Barclays over ten years with promises that the panels would boost his pension.
But the payments he got from the power his panels sent to the National Grid were not enough to cover the cost of the loan over 20 years.
He told the BBC: ‘I had to dip into my savings which I was putting away for retirement to pay the loan off. To me it was lies.’ The average solar panel system costs around £6,200, according to the Energy Saving Trust. The Feed-In Tariff scheme closed to applicants in March. However, those who had panels before it ended will still get the payments.
Barclays said a £38.5million fund had been set up to compensate customers across a number of different product areas, including solar panels.