The Solar Streets programme has been suspended as IDDEA, the company carrying out the installation of solar panels, has gone into administration. More details about why this is said to have happened and the potential remedies available for those directly affected can be found in the document below, which has been put together by IDDEA’s delivery partner The Green Group. The town council has not contributed to this document and is not responsible for the accuracy of its contents.

The Solar Streets programme was set up in 2020 to promote the installation of solar panels in Bruton and the surrounding area. The town council does not know who has used the programme, but anecdotal evidence suggests that those residents who had PV panels installed were happy with the quality, cost and performance of their installation. However in the past 18 months IDDEA appears to have struggled to deliver equipment. It is known that several residents, including one town councillor, have not received their installation and may have lost their deposit as a result of IDDEA going into administration.

If you have been directly affected, and/or want to be kept informed of the next steps, please contact councillor James Hood at james.hood@brutontowncouncil.gov.uk.

The town council has not yet had an opportunity to discuss these events. It may be that a new company offers a replacement programme at some point in future. If this happens, the council will need to make a fresh decision about whether to endorse any replacement programme.

Solar Streets letter re administration

A further update was received from the Green Group on 8 June 2023 as follows. (The Green Group were the intermediary company who worked with IDDEA to set up Solar Streets across many councils).

We, as The Green Group (UK) Limited, have worked with IDDEA since late 2019, with the first of our towns that we brought to Solar Streets being Henley on Thames. Since then, despite COVID and the parts shortages of last year, with your help, we have grown Solar Streets to 25 towns, installed approaching 400 Solar Systems and saved some 300 tonnes of CO₂pa.

The relationship with IDDEA has not always been easy and whenever there have been issues we have tried to intervene to sort them out. The relationship was extremely strained in the circumstances leading to IDDEA falling into Administration. We even put a bid in to take over IDDEA’s assets ourselves, but our pockets are not as deep as the winning bidder. We will personally be pursuing other avenues within the renewable space.

We have lost 3 months of commissions from installations that have already taken place and lost a lot more from the potential leads that we have supplied through Solar Streets that have not yet been installed. We also know that there are over 100 people who have paid the deposit for their system but, at the moment, are not certain whether they will lose that, and another 200 people who have had quotations but no installation date. We recommend that any customers with deposits still outstanding should contact the new owners Oakray (see below) using the IDDEA details of info@iddea.co.uk or 01380 726999.

We understand that the assets of IDDEA have been bought out of Administration by Oakray Limited (see www.oakray.co.uk) and that the business will re-emerge as Oakray Renewables Limited. We expected some communication from Oakray so that we could inform you, the partners, what was going on, but we have had none. We have only had very patchy information from Ian Dunstone, previously the Managing Director of IDDEA and who we believe will be the Managing Director of Oakray Renewables Ltd going forward.

We can no longer work with any company where we do not have a say in how the customer is treated and so we have taken the difficult decision to stop promoting Solar Streets. Oakray Renewables may continue to offer Solar Streets but that will be down to them.

I’m afraid we do not know whether the Community Benefits from July 2022 will be paid by Oakray because we have not been given any information about this – you must take this up with Oakray directly.

If your organisation asked for us to hold onto your Community Benefit that was paid out to other partners in July 2022, then we still have that money and will be happy to release those funds to you in July, please let us have details of your bank account.

We would like to thank all the partners in Solar Streets who have made the scheme such a success. It is a shame our involvement in it has got to end and we wish you all the very best of luck in this journey to Zero Carbon

Andy & Cat

Directors

The Green Group