After Birmingham City Council's recent decision to install solar panels onto the roofs of each of their housing stock, and announcement that Norwich City Council cover 5000 of their council houses in solar panels.  There is talk among some people in Ipswich about whether Ipswich borough Council will do the same.  This brief article explorers those possibilities.

But why is there this sudden investment in solar panels by local authorities? Surely in a period of public sector cuts you would assume that investing into renewable energy should be low on the priority list for Councils up and down the land?

This would normally be the case.  However, since the government introduced feed-in-tariffs last year, many local authorities, businesses and homeowners are now considering investment into solar panels.

What are these tariffs? Well, the feed-in-tariffs pay anyone who invests in solar panels 4-5 times the market rate for the electricity they create and use.  This gives the investor around 10% returns. In addition to being tax free, there returns are also guaranteed for 25 years.

For example, if a local authority were to use £1million of its reserves and invest into solar panels for all of its housing stock, it would generate around £100,000 a year.  Within ten years this would be paid off and, the £100,000 revenue would be a new income stream for the authority.  It is essentially enabling councils and other local authorities to switch capital reserves in to annual revenue spending.

With so many councils facing cuts of up to 28% of their grants over the next three years, schemes like this seem very appealing.

So, will we soon be seeing thousands of solar panels in Ipswich? Well, the council has already begun to include solar panels in new building projects and such as Broom Hill Pool (this is providing all the funding comes through for the pool).  Also, they are installing solar panels onto their new build council houses – but will they go further?

There is likely pressure from its parent Council Suffolk County Council, who, in 2008, made a pledge to become the UK's greenest council.

Whether Ipswich council decides to retrofit solar panels on its existing housing stock is yet to be seen. It needs to be clear, thought, that they need to make up their mind soon. On February 2011, Chris Huhne, the environmental secretary, called a early review of the feed-in-tariffs.  The outcome is yet unknown but it might mean that Ipswich loses a golden opportunity to create extra revenue in a time of public sector cuts.