E
dward Crouch and Anne Bentley had wanted solar panels for their four-bedroom semi-detached house in West Sussex for years, but could never make the maths add up.
The couple were keen to reduce their carbon footprint but felt deterred by the upfront cost of £15,000 to buy and install the panels. It can take between 10 and 21 years for homeowners to break even on the initial investment, depending on location and household energy usage, according to the Energy Saving Trust, an advisory and campaign group funded by the government and the energy industry.
Crouch, 39, and Bentley, 29, worried that if they moved home before they made their money back in energy savings, their investment would be wasted.
The pair turned to a subscription service — which allowed them to buy solar panels, cut their bills to a fraction of the cost and sell hundreds of pounds worth of energy back to the grid each month.
