Solar panels are worth it for most UK homes with a reasonably unshaded roof, but they are a long, low-risk investment rather than a quick win. The Energy Saving Trust's current modelling puts payback at 9 years in London and 12 years in Stirling, with export payments included. After that the electricity is free for the rest of the system's life, which is usually 25 years or more.
The thing that decides whether solar pays for your house is not the panel brand, the export tariff, or the installer's finance deal. It is how much of your own generation you use in the house instead of selling to the grid. Under the current price cap you buy electricity at 26.11p per kWh and sell it back at roughly 12p. Every unit you use yourself is worth more than twice a unit you export.
The only way to know your real payback is a quote against your actual roof, orientation and usage. Get quotes from MCS-certified installers covering your area.
Get My Free Quotes →The short answer, by household
Solar is worth it if you own the home, plan to stay past the payback point, and have a south, east or west facing roof without heavy shading. It is a poor investment if you are moving inside a few years, your roof faces north, or a neighbouring tree or building shades it for much of the day.
- Home during the day (retired, working from home, young family). Best case. You use a large share of what you generate, and you avoid the 26.11p import rate on every unit of it.
- Out all day, no battery. Still works, but slower. Most of your summer afternoon output goes to the grid at around 12p rather than saving you 26.11p.
- Out all day, with a battery. The battery closes most of that gap by storing the afternoon for the evening, but it costs £5,000 to £8,000, so it lengthens payback even as it raises annual savings. It is a comfort and resilience purchase as much as a financial one.
- Heat pump or EV on the drive. The strongest case of all. Both turn your house into a much bigger daytime electricity consumer, which is exactly what solar rewards.
What solar panels cost in 2026
A typical domestic system is 4.5kWp and costs around £6,100 installed, according to the Energy Saving Trust. That covers roughly 20 to 30 square metres of roof, usually about 12 panels. Source: Energy Saving Trust, Solar panels (last updated 1 July 2026).
Two things move that number. The install itself is currently zero-rated for VAT: HMRC's VAT Notice 708/6 confirms a zero rate on the installation of energy-saving materials, including solar panels and batteries, from 1 May 2023 to 31 March 2027. From 1 April 2027 it reverts to the 5% reduced rate, not to 20%. So the deadline is real but the cliff edge afterwards is smaller than some installers suggest. On a £6,100 system, the 5% rate would add roughly £300.
Worth knowing: the zero rate applies to supply and install. If you buy panels from a retailer and fit them yourself, that sale is standard-rated at 20%. Source: HMRC, VAT Notice 708/6.
Our guide to solar panel costs in the UK breaks the price down by system size and shows what a fair quote looks like at each one.
What solar panels actually save you
The saving is the import price you avoid, plus the export income you earn, and the first of those is worth more than twice the second. Under the Ofgem price cap for 1 July to 30 September 2026, the average Direct Debit electricity unit rate is 26.11p per kWh, with a 57.19p daily standing charge. Source: Ofgem, energy price cap unit rates and standing charges. The Energy Saving Trust's working figure for the Smart Export Guarantee is around 12p for every unit you do not use yourself.
That gap is the whole game. Here is the arithmetic on a 4.5kWp system generating about 4,000 kWh a year, which is a fair middle estimate for a well-oriented UK roof.
| How much you use yourself | Import you avoid (at 26.11p) | Export income (at 12p) | Year-one benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30% (out all day, no battery) | 1,200 kWh, £313 | 2,800 kWh, £336 | £649 |
| 50% (home part of the day) | 2,000 kWh, £522 | 2,000 kWh, £240 | £762 |
| 70% (home all day, or a battery, heat pump or EV) | 2,800 kWh, £731 | 1,200 kWh, £144 | £875 |
Notice what moves and what does not. Going from exporting most of your output to using most of it is worth over £200 a year on the same panels, the same roof and the same bill. That is why we keep saying self-consumption is the lever. It is also why chasing a headline export rate, covered in our comparison of current SEG rates, matters less than most solar quotes pretend.
Those figures are the gross benefit in the first year. They do not account for panel output easing off slightly over time, and they do not include replacing the inverter, which usually needs doing around year 12. Divide £6,100 by £762 and you get eight years, which is exactly the sort of number a salesperson will quote you. The Energy Saving Trust's modelled payback, which does account for the real-world costs, lands at 9 to 12 years. Trust the 9 to 12.
Payback by where you live
Payback with export payments runs from 9 years in London to 12 years in Stirling. These are the Energy Saving Trust's own figures, based on fuel prices as of July 2026, and they cover England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is not yet included in EST's table.
| Location | Home all day | Home half the day | Out all day |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 9 years | 9 years | 9 years |
| Aberystwyth | 9 years | 9 years | 10 years |
| Manchester | 10 years | 10 years | 11 years |
| Stirling | 11 years | 11 years | 12 years |
Solar panel payback period with export payments. Source: Energy Saving Trust, figures based on fuel prices as of July 2026 (England, Scotland, Wales).
The north to south spread is real but smaller than people expect. Stirling is three years behind London, not ten. A Scottish roof still generates; it just generates less. What the table also shows is that in London, being out all day costs you nothing in payback terms, while in Stirling and Manchester it costs you a year. The further north you are, the more your daytime routine matters.
One nuance the table hides: roof direction. An east or west facing roof gets around 15% to 20% less energy over the year than one facing directly south, according to EST. That is a real hit, but it rarely kills the case on its own. A north-facing roof does, and EST does not recommend installing on one.
When solar panels are not worth it
Solar does not pay if you will not be there long enough to reach payback, if your roof is heavily shaded, or if it faces north. The honest cases against:
- You are moving within a few years. Panels may add something to the sale price, but there is no reliable figure for how much, and you will not have recovered £6,100 in export income and bill savings by year three. If you are selling soon, do not buy solar as an investment.
- Heavy shading. A chimney, a tall neighbouring building or mature trees across the roof will cut output badly. Optimisers help by stopping one shaded panel from dragging the rest down, but they do not create sunlight. If the roof is in shade for a good part of the day, the payback maths stops working.
- A north-facing roof. EST does not recommend it. If that is your only usable roof, look at a garden or outbuilding mount instead, and get the quote before you assume it works.
- You use very little electricity. If your annual usage is small, most of your generation gets exported at around 12p rather than saving you 26.11p, and the payback stretches out.
- You rent. The saving goes to whoever pays the electricity bill, and the £6,100 goes to whoever owns the roof. Unless you own the property, the numbers on this page are not yours.
One more, specific to Northern Ireland: the Smart Export Guarantee covers Great Britain only, meaning England, Scotland and Wales. If your home is in NI you are outside the scheme, and you need to ask your electricity supplier and NIE Networks what export arrangement is available before you count any export income at all.
The costs the payback numbers hide
Two ongoing costs get left out of most solar sales pitches: the inverter, and the battery you may end up wanting.
The inverter. Panels themselves should last 25 years or more, but the inverter converting their DC output into usable AC typically needs replacing after around 12 years. Most inverters come with a five-year warranty as standard, extendable up to 15 years, and EST's own advice is worth repeating: a 15-year warranty can cost nearly as much as a replacement inverter, so weigh it up rather than accepting it automatically.
The battery. Battery storage costs around £5,000 to £8,000 on top of the panels. It genuinely lifts your annual saving by shifting afternoon generation into the evening, but it is a large enough sum that it usually lengthens the payback on the system as a whole. Buy a battery because you want evening self-supply and some resilience, not because you have been told it accelerates payback.
Maintenance, on the other hand, is close to nothing. In the UK, rain cleans panels tilted at 15 degrees or more. Keep the trees trimmed and that is broadly the job.
Is there a grant to make it worth it?
No. There is no dedicated UK Government solar panel grant, and any company telling you otherwise is selling you something. The Energy Saving Trust puts it plainly: "There aren't any dedicated solar panel grants from the UK Government."
What does exist, as of July 2026, is narrower than the marketing suggests:
- The Warm Homes Plan. Announced in January 2026, worth close to £15 billion. It includes fully funded solar installations for people on low incomes, plus low and zero-interest loans for homeowners regardless of income. The delivery detail is still being confirmed, so treat it as rolling out rather than open for applications today.
- ECO4. The Energy Company Obligation, delivered through energy suppliers, is linked to benefits and fuel poverty and runs until 31 December 2026. Contact your supplier or local council to see whether you qualify.
- The Great British Insulation Scheme ended on 31 March 2026. If a page or a salesperson is still offering it to you, they are working from stale information.
- Scotland. Home Energy Scotland's current funding table has no standalone solar PV grant. Check what is available before assuming solar is covered.
The zero VAT rate until 31 March 2027 is the one broad support that applies to everybody, and it is worth roughly £300 on a typical system compared with the 5% rate that follows it.
So, are they worth it?
For an owner-occupied home with a decent roof, staying put, yes. Expect to be square in 9 to 12 years and to run on free electricity for a decade or more after that. Solar in 2026 is not a get-rich scheme and the export income alone will never make it one. It is a hedge against buying electricity at 26.11p per kWh for the next 25 years, and it gets better every time that number goes up.
Judge a quote on three things: the install price against the £6,100 benchmark for 4.5kWp, whether the installer is MCS-certified, and whether their savings projection assumes a self-consumption rate you actually recognise as your own life. If the projection assumes you are home all day and you are not, the payback they have shown you is not your payback.