One strand of the Warm Homes Plan will pay for solar panels and a battery in full right now: the Warm Homes: Local Grant, which runs in England only and is delivered by your council. The low and zero-interest loans aimed at everyone else have no published consumer rules yet. That split is the whole story. If your home is privately owned, rated EPC D to G, and your household is on a low income or in a qualifying postcode, there is a live route to a funded install. If you are a working household on a normal income waiting for a government-backed solar loan, the eligibility rules have not been published, there is nothing on gov.uk for a household to apply to, and nobody can put you on a waiting list for one.
What does the Warm Homes Plan offer for solar panels?
Fully funded solar and battery installations for low-income households, and government-backed low and zero-interest loans for other homeowners. The plan was launched on 20 January 2026 and commits "£15 billion of public investment to upgrade up to 5 million homes". For low-income households and those in fuel poverty, the launch announcement was concrete: eligible "families could receive fully funded installations of solar panels and a battery, to the full average cost (currently £9,000-£12,000)", backed by £5 billion of public investment. That offer is aimed at low-income households, not at families in general. The plan document itself names what those packages contain, "in particular solar PV, batteries, cost effective insulation where necessary, and smart controls". Sources: gov.uk launch announcement, 20 January 2026 and gov.uk, Warm Homes Plan.
Read as a homeowner rather than as a press release, the plan is two different products with two different timetables. The grants arrive through councils and social landlords and are already installing. The loans arrive through commercial lenders and are still being set up. The rest of this page keeps those apart, because conflating them is how people end up waiting for money that was never coming to them.
Warm Homes: Local Grant: the strand that funds solar today
The Warm Homes: Local Grant is England only, worth £500 million over three years, and its delivery window runs from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2028. Councils bid for an allocation, then find and survey eligible homes in their area. The scheme's policy guidance for local authorities, updated June 2026, sets the delivery window out as a dated milestone, confirms the scheme is "England only", and lists solar PV among the eligible measures. Source: gov.uk, Warm Homes: Local Grant policy guidance and gov.uk, budget allocation.
The practical consequence of council delivery is that eligibility is necessary but not sufficient. You can meet every test on paper and still be told no, because the answer also depends on whether your council has funding left. The consumer page says it plainly: help depends on whether "your local council has funding available".
Who qualifies
There are three income routes into the grant, and you only need one of them. The guidance calls them pathways:
| Route | Test |
|---|---|
| Pathway 1: postcode | You live in an Indices of Multiple Deprivation income decile 1 or 2 area. The eligible postcode list is published on gov.uk, and the council can verify income automatically from it. |
| Pathway 2: benefits | Someone in the household receives a specified means-tested benefit, or you qualify under route 2 of ECO Flex. |
| Pathway 3: income | Gross household income below £36,000 a year, or below the equivalised "after housing costs" threshold for your household composition. |
On top of the income test, the property has to qualify too. The home must have an EPC rating in bands D to G, and it must be privately owned, either owner-occupied or privately rented. Social housing is outside the scheme except as limited in-fill work. Park homes count where the home is a permanent residence and meets an equivalent level of energy performance.
The £36,000 figure catches people out in both directions. It is a gross household income threshold, so a single earner on £34,000 can qualify while two earners on £20,000 each cannot, but the separate after-housing-costs route exists precisely for households whose rent or mortgage swallows the difference. If you are near the line, apply and let the council run the test rather than ruling yourself out.
What the grant actually pays for
Solar PV sits inside an energy performance cost cap of £16,600 per home, with a separate £16,600 cap for low carbon heat, and both are met on average across a council's project rather than house by house. The guidance groups solar PV with smart controls and domestic batteries as "smart measures" under the energy performance cap. A battery is only funded alongside solar panels, never on its own: installs were paused in November 2025 because no MCS product standard existed, and the guidance confirms councils could resume battery installs alongside solar PV from 2 February 2026.
Three details worth knowing before a surveyor walks in:
- Owner-occupiers contribute nothing. The guidance is explicit that where a home is owner-occupied the upgrade should be fully funded and the household must not be required to contribute. For privately rented homes, one property per landlord is fully funded across the scheme, after which a 50% landlord contribution applies.
- Solar is not guaranteed to be on your list. The survey decides the measure package, and the scheme's primary aim is bill savings. An uninsulated home may be offered insulation first, because that is where the savings are. Solar is eligible, not automatic.
- The installers are regulated. Work must follow PAS 2035:2023, installers must be TrustMark registered and MCS certified for the relevant measures, and every measure is lodged with TrustMark. The June 2026 update removed the old "equivalent to MCS" provision, so MCS certification is now required in all cases for relevant measures. That is the same standard you should insist on when choosing an installer privately.
How to apply for the Warm Homes: Local Grant
Apply online at gov.uk/apply-warm-homes-local-grant. If you are eligible and your council has funding, it will usually contact you within 10 working days to arrange a home survey, and you pay nothing for agreed work. The gov.uk page sets out the eligibility check, the survey step and the funded measures, including solar panels, and states "You will not need to pay for it." There is a helpline on 0800 098 7950, Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 12pm. Source: gov.uk, apply for the Warm Homes: Local Grant.
Two warnings. First, the only application route is gov.uk or your council: no company can fast-track you, charge you for access, or guarantee you panels, and any caller offering that is worth hanging up on. Second, if you rent from a social landlord, this is not your scheme. Low-income funding reaches social tenants through the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund and your landlord, so ask them instead.
The Warm Homes Plan loans: what is confirmed and what is not
The loan scheme is real and funded, but its consumer rules have not been published, so there is nothing for a household to apply to yet. The plan sets out an initial £2 billion of government support delivered in partnership with the private sector, and says the government intends "to allocate up to £1.7 billion of the facility to new low- and zero-interest consumer loans". On eligibility it is explicit that the detail is still coming: "We will set out further details of the scheme's eligibility later this year." We checked gov.uk on 10 October 2026 and the only live pages for the scheme are aimed at lenders.
What exists so far is the lender side. The Warm Homes Loan Scheme invited lenders to apply to take part in a first tranche, and that window has closed: "Lender applications for the first tranche of the Warm Homes Loan Scheme have now closed. We expect to open a further application window later in 2026." That page was last updated on 17 September 2026 and names no participating lender. Source: gov.uk, Warm Homes Loan Scheme: apply to participate as a lender (phase 1).
So the honest position for a household on a normal income is that the loan is a 2027 planning assumption at best, not a 2026 budget line. If a salesperson tells you they can put your install on a government-backed zero-interest loan, ask which lender and which scheme, then check it against that gov.uk page. In the meantime, ordinary solar panel finance is what is actually on the table, and the interest you pay on it is the number that decides whether borrowing to install makes sense.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
The Warm Homes: Local Grant is England only. Each other nation runs its own scheme, and only Wales currently installs solar panels for free.
- Wales. Nest, the Welsh Government's home energy scheme, offers free advice to anyone and free home energy efficiency improvements to eligible households, listing heat pumps, insulation and solar among the improvements covered. Eligibility is checked separately, and the advice line is free on 0808 808 2244, Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm. Source: GOV.WALES, Nest.
- Scotland. Home Energy Scotland does not fund a standard solar PV system. Its current funding table offers £7,500 as a grant plus £7,500 as an interest-free loan for an air, ground or water source heat pump, with a £1,500 rural and island uplift, but the only PV entry is hybrid solar PV-T at a £5,000 loan with no grant, and its footnote states "only solar PV-T systems are eligible for funding". Solar thermal is also loan-only at £5,000. Source: Home Energy Scotland.
- Northern Ireland. The Great Britain schemes do not apply, and neither does the Smart Export Guarantee. The 0% VAT rate on installation does apply in Northern Ireland, so ask your electricity supplier what it pays for exported units and check current Northern Ireland support before budgeting.
If you do not qualify, this is what you do get
Three things, and together they are worth more than most people assume: 0% VAT on the installation until 31 March 2027, Smart Export Guarantee payments for the electricity you sell back, and ECO4 until 31 December 2026 if your household is benefits-linked.
- 0% VAT. Installation of solar panels and batteries is zero-rated UK-wide until 31 March 2027, after which it reverts to the 5% reduced rate, not 20%. On a typical system that is a few hundred pounds, not thousands, so it is a tiebreaker rather than a deadline to panic about. The detail is in our guide to 0% VAT on solar panels and the 2027 deadline.
- Smart Export Guarantee. Every licensed supplier sets its own export rate and the spread between best and worst is wide, which makes it one of the few levers you control after installation. See current SEG rates by supplier.
- ECO4. Ofgem confirms that "ECO4 applies to measures installed from 1 April 2022 and will run until 31 December 2026, following a nine-month extension". It is benefits and fuel-poverty linked, solar is a narrow case within it, and it is closing, so it is not a plan to build around. The wider picture, including what is left once ECO4 ends, is on our UK solar panel grants page.
What to do this month
Check your eligibility on gov.uk first, because a funded install beats any quote. If you are outside the income tests, price the job properly instead of waiting for the loans. Whether a privately funded system is worth it depends on your roof, your electricity use and the price you are quoted, which is a different calculation from grant hunting: our guide to what solar panels cost in the UK has the current benchmarks.
Local delivery also means local answers. We document the grant position, electricity rates and planning rules area by area, including solar panels in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Kent and Norfolk, and the full set is on the solar panels by area hub.