Last reviewed: 3 September 2026. Electricity prices on this
page use the Ofgem price cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026. We re-check every figure each time
the cap changes.
Plug-in solar became lawful to use in Great Britain on 27 August 2026.
For the first time you can buy a solar kit, put it on a balcony, a fence or a patio frame, plug it
into an ordinary socket and start cutting your electricity bill the same afternoon — no electrician,
no scaffolding, no quote, no planning application in most cases. The limits are strict: 800 watts of
AC output, one kit per household, and no battery inside the kit. Realistically it saves a well-sited
household somewhere in the region of £60–£110 a year, and the government’s own figure is “up to
£110”.
What a plug-in solar system actually is
Four parts, and that is the whole product:
- One or two solar panels, typically 400–500 W each, mounted on a balcony rail,
a fence, a shed roof, a flat garage roof or a free-standing frame on the ground. - A microinverter, a box roughly the size of a hardback book, which converts the
panels’ DC output into ordinary 230 V AC and synchronises it with the mains. - A cable ending in a standard three-pin plug, which goes into an ordinary
outdoor-rated socket. - Mounting hardware — brackets, clamps or a frame.
When the sun is on the panels, the microinverter pushes electricity into the ring main. Your
fridge, router, freezer, boiler pump and anything else that happens to be running take that
electricity first, because it is electrically closer than the grid. Your meter therefore records
less import, and your bill falls. Nothing has been rewired, nothing has been added to your consumer
unit, and the whole thing unplugs in about five seconds.
It is deliberately a small product. It is not a route to going off-grid, it will not power a
shower or an oven, and it does nothing at all at night. What it does is quietly cover the background
load that every home draws all day long — which, in most British households, is a surprisingly large
share of the annual bill.
What the law allows, in three numbers
The change came through SI 2026/848, the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety)
Regulations 1994 and Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002 (Amendment)
Regulations 2026, which came into force on 27 August 2026, alongside an Interim Product Specification
published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Together they set three hard limits.
| Limit | The rule | Where it comes from | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 800 W AC | Maximum rated alternating current output of the device must not exceed 800 watts | SI 2026/848, definition of a plug-in microgenerator | A hard ceiling on what can enter your sockets, whatever the panels are rated at |
| Up to 2,000 W DC of panels | Panel capacity behind the 800 W inverter may be substantially larger than the inverter | DESNZ Interim Product Specification | Oversizing the DC side is allowed and normal; the inverter clips the summer peak |
| No battery in the kit | The device must not be designed to import electricity from the home in order to store it for later supply, beyond permitted control or auxiliary functions |
SI 2026/848 | “Plug-in solar plus battery” products sold in the EU are not compliant on this route |
| One device per household | A single plug-in device per household | ENA Engineering Recommendation G98, as amended in 2026 | Not one per socket, per floor or per circuit. One |
There is one more obligation, and it is administrative rather than technical: you must notify your
distribution network operator within 28 days of switching the device on, and again
if you later remove it. That is a notification, not an application — nobody has to approve anything.
The full walkthrough is on our DNO notification page, and the legal
detail behind all of the above is set out in the rules.
Great Britain, not the UK. The provision that makes using the device lawful
extends to England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland was not included and has a separate
regulatory framework; we cover the position separately.
What it will actually save you
Here is the calculation nobody does properly, in four steps.
- Generation. Panel capacity in kWp × the annual yield where you live. British
yields for a well-oriented, well-tilted array run from roughly 750 kWh per kWp in the far north of
Scotland to about 1,050 on the south coast of England, with something near 900 as a national
average. - Real-world derating. Multiply down for orientation (a west-facing array
produces roughly four-fifths of a south-facing one), for a vertical balcony mount (a substantial
penalty against an angled mount), and for shading. - Self-consumption. Multiply by the share you actually use in the house at the
moment it is generated. This is the step that decides everything, and it is covered below. - Value. Multiply by your unit rate. Under the Ofgem price cap for 1 October to
31 December 2026, a typical direct-debit household in England, Scotland or Wales pays
26.32p per kWh for electricity, with a standing charge of 54.83p a day. There is
no VAT on domestic electricity in Great Britain between 1 October 2026 and 31 March 2027.
Run that through and a 0.8–1.0 kWp kit in the Midlands, angled, unshaded, with 70% self-consumption
lands somewhere around £120–£160 of generated value a year before derating and rather less after it —
which is why the government’s “up to £110” is a fair headline rather than a fantasy, and why a
shaded, north-facing, vertically-mounted kit in Aberdeen will not get close to it. Put your own
numbers in the savings calculator, which
shows every assumption it uses.
The part that changes the answer: you are not paid for export
A self-installed plug-in kit cannot claim the Smart Export Guarantee. SEG requires
an MCS certificate — or an accepted equivalent such as Flexi-Orb — and an export meter point, and a
plug-in kit has neither. Suppliers cannot offer a regulated SEG tariff to an uncertified
installation. Every unit you generate and do not use is given to the network for nothing.
That single fact reorders the whole product. It means the household that benefits most is not the
one with the best balcony but the one with the most daytime load: someone working from home, an
immersion heater on a timer, a heat pump, a dehumidifier, a chest freezer in the garage. And it means
the highest-value thing you can do after installing a kit costs nothing at all — move your washing
machine, dishwasher and hot water to the middle of the day.
Who this is genuinely good for, and who should ignore it
| Situation | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Renting a flat with a south, south-east or south-west balcony | Strong case | Nothing else on the market works here; the kit moves house with you, so the payback does not have to fit inside the tenancy |
| Homeowner working from home, no suitable roof | Strong case | High daytime self-consumption is exactly what makes the economics work |
| Homeowner with a good, unshaded, south-facing roof and the capital available | Consider full rooftop instead | A conventional installation is several times larger, is MCS-certified and does earn export payments. Plug-in is the wrong tool here |
| House empty from 8am to 6pm, no timed loads | Weak case | Half or more of the generation is exported for nothing. Fix the self-consumption first, or look at a battery instead |
| Heavily shaded balcony, or north-facing with no alternative site | Probably not | The derating stacks up faster than people expect; run the numbers before buying |
| Northern Ireland | Not yet | The GB regime does not extend there. See our Northern Ireland page |
What it costs and what to look for
Compliant 800 W kits in the British market in autumn 2026 span a wide range: from a few hundred
pounds for a single panel with a budget microinverter and no mounting hardware, up to roughly £1,000
for a premium two-panel kit with proper balcony brackets. The commonly quoted figure for a two-panel
kit sits somewhere around £700–£800. These are ranges observed in retailer listings and trade
coverage, not a price survey we have carried out ourselves — we will publish a dated survey of our
own before we recommend anything specific.
What matters more than the badge:
- Is the complete kit sold as compliant with the DESNZ Interim Product Specification?
Not “CE marked”, not “800 W”, not “used in Germany”. The specification is a British document and it
is what the regulations point to. - Does it include DNO notification instructions? A compliant kit is required to.
Its absence is a useful warning sign. - Is the mounting hardware in the box, and is it right for your surface? This is
where most disappointment happens. - Who is the seller, and where are they? Your strongest protections in a dispute
run against a UK retailer and through your credit card provider, not against a manufacturer’s
warranty.
The buying criteria in full are on how to choose a kit. We do
not publish a ranked “best kits” table, and we explain why on that page.
Where plug-in solar meets batteries
The most common follow-up question is whether you can add storage, and the answer under this route
is no: a compliant plug-in device is specifically not allowed to import from the house in order to
store energy. Products combining a plug-in inverter with a battery exist in the European market and
are not compliant here.
That does not make batteries irrelevant — it makes them a separate decision, taken for separate
reasons, most often about tariff arbitrage rather than about solar at all. There is also a live
deadline: the zero rate of VAT on installed home batteries runs to 31 March 2027, after which the
expectation is a return to the reduced 5% rate. Start with
home battery storage and
the VAT deadline.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an electrician?
No. A compliant kit is designed to be installed by the householder into an existing socket. That
is the entire point of the regime. If a kit requires wiring into a consumer unit, it is not a plug-in
device and different rules apply.
Do I have to tell anyone?
Yes — your distribution network operator, within 28 days, and again if you remove the device. It
is free, takes about ten minutes, and cannot be refused.
Do I need my landlord’s permission?
To use the device, no. To fix brackets to the building, almost certainly yes. A free-standing
frame on a patio or garden usually avoids the question entirely.
Will it work in winter?
Barely. British irradiance in December is a small fraction of the June figure, and a plug-in kit
is a summer-weighted product. Any annual saving figure is dominated by April to September.
Can I have two kits?
No. G98 as amended permits one device per household.
Will I be paid for what I export?
No. Without MCS certification and an export meter point there is no Smart Export Guarantee, and
that is not expected to change for self-installed kits.
Where to go next
- Work out your own number: savings
calculator - Check you are allowed: the rules from 27 August 2026
- Do the paperwork: notifying your DNO
- Buy sensibly: how to choose a kit
- Understand the economics: savings and payback
Sources used on this page.
SI
2026/848 (legislation.gov.uk) ·
DESNZ, Plug-in solar: regulatory amendment and interim product specification ·
Ofgem, price cap unit rates and standing charges ·
Ofgem, Smart Export Guarantee ·
Energy Networks Association, find my network operator.
How this page was written and how we are funded:
editorial methodology ·
how we make money.