Encouraging Solar?

A couple of years ago we looked into installing solar panels on our roof. This was at a time when the UK government was about to reduce the feed in tariff so we would have to act quickly if we were to get the better rate.

In our case it would have cost around £10K to install the panels and would have taken about 5 years for that to be recouped, that is, we'd only start seeing return on investment after that.

That's not so bad but it's quite possible, likely even, that we'll be moving house around then so that the people who would get that return on our investment would be whoever bought our house, not us.

There was another factor working against us too. Looking around it seems that there is little, if any, evidence that installing solar panels on your roof makes your house any more valuable. What you really want to know is that if you spend £10K installing solar panels, the value of your house will be £10K higher. That doesn't seem to be the case and is probably unrealistic but maybe we can work towards something like that. As the UK political parties get their policies ready for the election next year, here's a mini proposal:

use the stamp duty system to favour houses with installed solar panels (or other renewable generation).

This might mean a small increase in stamp duty on houses without solar panels, not necessarily a discount for those with.

The rate could have a temporal aspect so that new installations got a more favourable rate than older ones.