The Sweden-based company known as Ikea, best known for cheap basics such as its Billy bookcases and Ektorp sofas, plans to offer solar panel packages at all of its 17 British stores within the next 10 months. It said the move follows a successful pilot project at its Lakeside store to the east of London, which sells one photovoltaic system almost every day.
Britain offers subsidies to encourage the takeup of photovoltaic panels in a bid to boost production and help it meet legally-binding targets to cut carbon emissions. A solar panel owner receives subsidies for generating solar-sourced electricity exporting excess power into the grid. An average semi-detached house would earn as much as $1,200 a year through subsidies and savings on energy bills, an IKEA case study showed.
IKEA's offer of panels made by China's Hanergy Holding Group Ltd., a power producer and manufacturer of thin-film photovoltaic panels, involves a minimum spend of 5,700 pounds for which customers get 18 panels which should break even within roughly 7 years. "We know that our customers want to live more sustainably and we hope working with Hanergy to make solar panels affordable and easily available helps them do just that," said Joanna Yarrow, IKEA's head of sustainability in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
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