Social housing body to fit solar panels in a bid to become a carbon-neutral business

Social housing body, the Peabody Trust, is to spend £23m fitting solar panels to its London housing stock.

The retrofit scheme planned is to be one of the most ambitious to be undertaken by a social housing provider in the country.

The £23m will be spent on fitting photovoltaic panels to existing housing blocks in its aim to become a carbon-neutral business by 2020.

The installation programme will run for approximately 18 months, but Peabody hopes to have most of the job completed by April next year.

During the last 12 months the market for fitting PV panels has taken off as supermarkets and social housing providers seek to improve their energy performance.