The war in Iran and “volatility in the power price market… has reinforced that if you get solar and batteries, that stabilises your price for the next 20 years, and a lot more people have responded to that”, says Hewett. He adds that for consumers able to combine domestic solar with a battery and an EV with off-street parking, charging the vehicle from their own electricity is a very attractive proposition.

Lloyd Greenfield, chief executive of Glow Green, which is targeting becoming the second largest installer of solar panels in the country behind Octopus, says its solar business “has gone from strength to strength”. But the backlash against net zero in some quarters has negatively influenced consumer perception of the payback, he says. “The cost of panels and deploying them has come down so much but consumers may think it takes 10 to 20 years to get your money back.”

He adds there has also been significant press about solar panels catching fire, “but that’s mainly been in commercial environments where the systems haven’t been designed correctly”. There is also some negativity right now about heat pump running costs which has “stalled consumer confidence in deploying these products”. Like Solar UK, Greenfield says there are advantages in combining low-carbon technologies to minimise cost. “Heat pumps work incredibly well when paired with solar panels.”

For now, Glow Green customers who are installing heat pumps are doing so because they care about the environment, Greenfield says. “For solar, it is about a financial investment because they know they are going to get their payback in six years.” The availability of low-cost batteries has helped transform the proposition. “You become not only less reliant on the grid; in theory you could decouple from it and be self-sufficient in the event of future conflicts.”

All of which is good news if you can afford the initial investment in solar panels, EVs, batteries, and heat pumps. Smart pre-payment meter energy retailer Utilita is also offering solar panels and batteries to customers but hopes to go further. Caitlin Berridge-Dunn, head of external affairs, says: “There are some households that can afford to pay for a whole system upfront but that is a small pool with the pressures on household budgets.

“There needs to be a way to enable a broader range of families to access private finance in a way that works for them.”

Utilita is developing a subscription-based model for the social housing sector where it funds, installs and maintains solar and battery systems for tenants. The customer pays a subscription at a rate 20% below the electricity price cap. “The challenge in this space is that there are pockets of grant funding available, but it is never going to go far enough to achieve the scale we need,” explains Berridge-Dunn.

When it comes to Utilita customers, she adds: “There’s a credit risk with the tenants, you cannot put additional costs onto bills that are capped, and rightly so because of the cost-of-living crisis. So how can we design models that channel private investment to unlock that?

“That is our number one priority.”

She believes net zero has been “politicised and overblown in many respects. The concern is about the rising cost of bills rather than net zero as a principle. Polling overwhelmingly shows that people are still very concerned about climate change.” Low-carbon technologies and saving money go hand in hand. “In order to have the buy-in for net zero, we need to show it has a real impact on bills. It’s not an either / or.”

In this context, reducing the cost of electricity is vital. Berridge-Dunn welcomes Andy Burnham’s decision to remove VAT from electricity bills, but she would like to see “more targeted” support, and more parts of the electricity bill, such as policy and network costs, moved into general taxation. This would make the energy transition fairer, she says.

The point is echoed by Kit Dixon, head of policy and regulation at Good Energy. He says levies paid for via the electricity bill “contribute to schemes we consider necessary” but “the fact most of them are loaded onto electricity bills is unhelpful.

“It’s a regressive way of recouping funds and it means lower-income households will basically pay a greater share of their income toward public goods.”

He adds that addressing costs by pushing up the price of electricity is negatively impacting electrification of heat and transport. “The more we artificially inflate electricity bills, the less enticing a proposition that is.”