Check if you can fit plug-in solar at your home
Six questions, about two minutes. You will get an indication of whether plug-in solar is likely to be allowed at your property, and what to do next.
One thing worth saying at the start. Buying a kit is easy and getting it plugged in is easy. Fixing a panel safely to the outside of a building is not. Most of what follows is about that part.
This site is guidance only. It does not sell kits or hold stock.
What plug-in solar is
A plug-in solar kit is one or two panels you mount on a balcony, wall, fence or flat roof. The panels connect to a small inverter, and the inverter plugs into an ordinary socket. Power the panels make is used by your home first. There is no rewiring and no consumer unit work.
It is a smaller thing than a roof solar installation. It is meant for people who cannot fit panels to a roof, including renters and people in flats.
What the law now allows
Plug-in solar is now permitted in Great Britain under set conditions. The conditions cover the kit itself, how it is fitted, and how it connects to your home. Meeting all of them is what makes an installation legal, so the answer for your home depends on your building as much as on the kit you buy.
Plug-in solar became lawful to connect in Great Britain on 27 August 2026. The change was made by SI 2026/848, which was made on 16 July 2026 and laid before Parliament the following day.
The instrument creates a legal category called a plug-in microgenerator. To fall inside it, a device must generate electricity from sunlight, have a maximum rated AC output not exceeding 800 watts, connect to the home through a standard plug and socket, run in parallel with the network, and not be designed to import electricity for storage.
The detailed conditions sit in a separate document, the Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification, version 2.0. The law names that specification, which is what gives it force.
Sources: SI 2026/848 as made, legislation.gov.uk. Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification v2.0, July 2026, DESNZ.
Start the check
Six questions: where the panel would go, what the balcony or wall is made of, any cladding or fire-safety work on the building, whether a socket is reachable without an extension lead, whether you own or rent, and which way the spot faces.
Your result
Your answer appears at the end of the check itself, once you have worked through the questions. There are three possible answers: likely allowed, likely not allowed where you want to put it, and something here needs checking first. None of them is a decision. Each one is an indication based on what you told us.
Whatever your answer, read the fitting checklist below before you buy anything.
Worth knowing before you shop. The rules allow a panel on a balcony rail or a wall, but that does not mean a kit exists for it yet. The kits reaching UK shelves first are sold for ground mounting, and at least one carries a plain warning that it is not suitable for balconies and is for ground use only.
A kit may only be installed the way its own instructions allow. If you want a balcony mount, check the kit is sold for it before you buy, not after.
Getting the most out of it
None of this is a legal requirement. It is the difference between a panel that earns its money and one that disappoints you.
Face it south if you can. South gives the most output over a year. South east and south west are still worth doing. North facing is not, and no amount of good mounting will fix that. Shade matters as much as direction: a panel that is in shadow for half the day will not perform, whichever way it points.
Tilt beats vertical. A panel hung flat against a railing or a wall, standing straight up, loses a large part of what a tilted one would produce. If your kit allows a tilt and your spot allows it, use it.
Panels lose output when they get hot. A solar panel is rated at a cell temperature of 25C. As the cell gets hotter than that, output falls. This is about the temperature of the panel itself, not the weather. A panel pinned flat against a wall in full sun has nowhere to lose that heat, which is one reason wall mounting kits leave a gap behind the panel for air to move.
There is a limit to what you can do about this, and it matters. You cannot add your own spacers or swap the brackets to create a gap. Substituting anything in the mounting system is exactly what voids the product approval. If airflow behind the panel matters to you, it is something to check in the instructions before you buy, not something to engineer afterwards.
Getting the cable indoors
The cable has to reach a socket on its own, with no extension lead and no adaptor. For a garden or a balcony with a socket already outside, that is usually fine. For a panel on an outside wall, it often is not, and people are surprised by what comes next.
The two ways round it are a new outdoor socket, or a hole drilled through the wall so the cable can reach a socket inside. Both are electrical work on the fabric of the building. A new outdoor socket, or moving one onto a suitable circuit, is work for a CPS-registered electrician, not a handyman.
Drilling through an external wall is also an alteration to the building. If you rent, or you own a leasehold flat, that needs permission before anyone starts, and permission for the panel is not automatically permission for a hole. Ask about both together.
Fitting checklist
Applies to every result. Read it before you buy a kit and again before anything is drilled.
- Use the mounting system supplied in the box, exactly as the instructions say. Do not substitute brackets, fixings or straps for something from a DIY shop.
- Fixings must go into structure. Never into cladding, never into render over insulation, never into balcony timber or decking. If you cannot tell what is behind the surface, stop and ask.
- The balcony rail must be able to take the load. A rail that feels solid to lean on is not evidence that it can carry a panel in wind. Get it confirmed if you are unsure.
- Wind and height limits are set by your kit, not by a national figure. The manufacturer has to state the maximum installation height above ground and any other restrictions needed for the product to survive UK wind and snow loads. Read the instructions for the kit you actually bought.
- The cable must reach a socket on its own. No extension leads and no multi-way adaptors. The cable must not be crushed by a door, window or furniture, and must not cross a fire escape route, a walkway or a stairwell.
- A near-vertical panel produces noticeably less than a tilted one. If the kit allows a tilt and your balcony allows it, tilt it.
- In a block of flats you need freeholder consent, and you must tell your insurer. Anything fixed to the outside of the building is an external alteration. Get consent in writing before you order.
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Electrical work is different, and this matters. A handyman or a roofer can put up a panel on masonry or a rail. Nobody but a CPS-registered electrician should fit a new outdoor socket, move a socket onto a suitable circuit, or do anything hard-wired.
If your result was that the cable will not reach, that is electrical work. Search the government-backed register of competent electricians instead.
Compliance rules summary
Rules last checked: 28 August 2026
Power. The device must not supply more than 800 VA to the mains installation, and the current must not exceed 3.5 A.
Panels. Total panel DC output must not exceed 2,000 W. No more than four modules, no more than two in series, and no more than 120 V DC open circuit at the inverter. Above 960 W of panels the manufacturer must advise you to consider having your wiring assessed.
Plug. A non-rewireable moulded plug to BS 1363-1 with partially insulated pins and a BS 1362 fuse not exceeding 5 A. The socket must comply with BS 1363-2. The plug is fitted by the manufacturer.
Connection. Straight into the wall. Multi-way adaptors, travel adaptors, RCD adaptors and plug convertors are not permitted, and the plug must carry a warning against extension cables. The circuit must be a socket circuit, not a lighting circuit and not a spur feeding fixed equipment such as a cooker or boiler.
How many. One device per household. The specification is written per final ring circuit, but it records that G98 restricts this to one per household unless and until that is amended, so one per household is the rule that applies.
Buildings. Installation is not permitted on aluminium composite or metal composite cladding, high pressure laminate cladding, timber cladding, timber balconies, or buildings subject to external wall or building safety remediation works.
Permission. You are responsible for getting any permission needed from the property owner, landlord, freeholder, managing agent or relevant authority, and for any planning permission or Listed Building Consent. You are also responsible for checking whether the installation affects your insurance or the building’s.
Notification. Telling your distribution network operator about connection and disconnection is mandatory.
Product. Compliance attaches to the whole kit, not the inverter alone. The manufacturer must have the device type tested to G98, registered on the ENA Type Test Register, and confirmed as compliant before it is placed on the market. Being submitted to the register is not the same as being compliant on it.
Where this applies. The limb of the law that makes connecting lawful covers England, Wales and Scotland only. Northern Ireland is outside it.
Sources: SI 2026/848 as made, legislation.gov.uk. Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification v2.0, clauses 1, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2.2, 5.8, 6.2.2, 6.2.3.1, 6.2.3.2, 7, 8.2.3.1, 8.3.1, 8.3.2, 8.3.3, 9.3.