A bigger problem is the lack of people trained to do these energy surveys.
Speaking to someone who is trained to do the reduced EPC for the stripped down home sellers pack, he told me there are no guides as to what the new certificate should include and next to nobody who can do the surveys and his basic charge for the reduced survey comes to a end user price of 50 quid. The required extended tests for the PV qualification would cost the end user north of 150 quid as a minimum. This alone will stifle demand as who will stump up 150 quid to find out they need to spend a grand on home upgrades in order to qualify to spend several more thousands on PV and then only qualify for the reduced 21p FIT?
The certificate surveyors were only sufficient for homeowners looking to sell their house. Now a survey will be needed by some (hopefully large) proportion of the 26 million homes that might want PV irrespective of whether they are moving home or not. Another army of "do-ers" that don`t exist but the government has mandated.
Lots of people he knew trained up for the extended survey and then the government changed their mind and relaxed the HIP (Home Information Pack) requirements, making most of their expensive training redundant at a stroke.
Just faced with the red tape (let alone the extra costs) I expect most to file the idea of PV under "Can`t be ar...".
Meanwhile the local PV companies are busy with their closing down campaigns... First was selling innappropriate installs to people with the tag line "buy before the FITS are reduced!!!", and now it`s "Buy before April when the red tape makes it impossible for you to buy!!!".
The huge drop in PV prices in the UK is partly reductions in base costs but also probably a lot of PV installers stock dumping before the crash.
Here`s a nice install that went up in November near me...
http://www.solarbodge.blogspot.com/2011/12/bad-installs.html
