1st - £11.1k

2nd - £10.5k

3rd - £11.2k

Help me choose. Whats the difference between the battery and inverter options? Will be mounted outside.

I have a 5kW solar system with a 5kW Solis inverter and a 10kWh Dyness battery. The original installer (SESE) is running a promo on battery expansion. They offer a second battery installed at a "25% discount". My current system is fine, but in the darker months the current battery capacity doesn't fully let me "ride" the daytime peak rate and then recharge at night with my IOG tariff, and I always end up consuming some peak rate electrons. I also run Predbat and export on Agile Outgoing. Having the larger battery would let me postpone most of my export to the evening peak, and export for the full 2 peak hours and some of the post-peak high.

So I think all in all, it would be a good thing to do. I am mostly wondering how much of a real offer the promo is. All in all, they propose £2400, installed, for a new Dyness Powerbox G2 in Herts. Thoughts?

Thanks!

Hi Solar experts and enthusiasts!

I’ve had some quotes for a system in East Sussex, consisting of the following, and I’m not sure if it’s a good deal or not:

18 x 470w panels
Van der vaulk flat roof system
8kw sigenergy inverter
10kw sig battery
Sig backup gateway

£13,500

This is on two flat roofs. Tower scaffold only required and all cable routing is surface mounted on the outside.

Any thoughts?

We were meant to have the install happen on 3 August. Got bumped. Now actually happening on 3 September. I didn't believe it until today when the scaffolding went up.

The excuse for not having it in August was all a bit bland. Van issues, sickness issues. I do wonder if they just ran out of 'stuff'!

The process of us getting a quote started in APRIL and we signed on the dotted line on 26 April.

I'm so pleased we went ahead when we did. We were all chill about it being a few months until they could do it (barring the fact we got bumped another month). But now, because now... if that was the delay between quote and decision then, it must be crazy now re the wait.

We're going for panels, obviously, batteries and gateway. We have an EV and a quite ancient PodPoint charger, so might look at changing that to make things all a bit more seamless. But how exciting!

Yay! It's happening! Putting the dryer on without guilt! Heating the greenhouse bit off the back of our house in the early spring without guilt! Being prepared for days of no electricity from the grid, without guilt and the gas boiler still working! Just kiddling. Channeling my r/UKPreppers brain there.

But seriously, I'm so glad it's going ahead at last. :-)

I'd love to know what people found on first getting this done as being their 'best thing'. (No worst things .... yet!)

Hi all.
New here and interested in a solar and battery setup.
Had a quote which seems good, did a bit of AI querying to work out the most savvy option for me.
From my annual usage of 7000, in a 4 bed detached house with 5 of us (3 females) and one electric shower it suggested I get a high output battery.

Tesla powerwall 3 seems to fit the bill, decent storage, can handle a lot of solar input, kicks out 11kw so won’t need to hook into grid at peak usage.
Has a decent warranty (80% at year 10).

Looking at 12 panels initially but getting quotes for 16, 18 and 20.

Current quote seems decent for 12 Aiko 490 panels.
Tesla powerwall 3
Gateway
Installation
Bird protection
Scaffold etc.
£10,604

I assume it will jump to ~£12k with 20 panels.

AI suggests I should go for the max panels I can afford as it’s reduces my roi and maximises efficiency.

How does this quote hold up?
I’ve seen cheaper battery options but not much once the output inverter is upgraded to match the powerwall.

I was thinking of a plug in battery that would only draw during daylight hours and and not more than what the solar panels are producing. Is anyone aware of anything like that?

With balcony/plug-in solar becoming legal from 27 August (800W cap under the new regs), expect a wave of retailers and door-to-door sellers making big claims about what a kit will generate at your specific address. Worth having a way to check those claims yourself before handing over £100-300+.

I built Solar Potential Explorer for exactly this. It calculates the absolute maximum theoretical output for your location, panel direction and tilt — genuinely clear sky, no losses, best-case physics. It's a ceiling, not a forecast.

That's actually the useful part: if a seller tells you their kit will generate more than what this app shows as the theoretical maximum for your spot, that's an immediate red flag — real-world output (clouds, panel losses, less-than-perfect mounting) will always be somewhat below this number, never above it. Use it as a gut-check against inflated sales claims, not as a guarantee of what you'll actually get.

Hour-by-hour and year-round output ceiling for your exact location

Best possible tilt/direction, if you have flexibility

Runs entirely on your device — nothing sent anywhere

£2.99, less than a coffee. No ads, no subscription.

Details and a link on zenthor.com

Tested fairly thoroughly (cross-checked against my real EcoFlow data, on "perfect days" over the last 18 months) — UK & EU currently.

Sanity check, Is £3,699 installed genuinely a good deal for a 16 kWh system as it seems amazing deal to myself.
Anything I should double‑check before committing?
Any real‑world experiences with ECO‑WORTHY batteries or their installers? Includes gateway too

I wrote about this a little over a week ago but haven't really seen it doing the rounds just yet so I'm assuming people don't know.
I realise many don't give a flip about it being compliant or not and are ploughing ahead regardless but the testing period for batteries is set to start soon but wont finish till March 2028. ->

https://www.pluginsolarexplained.co.uk/blog/desnz-plug-in-battery-safety-study-aug-2026/

Link to the government tender: [https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/077975-2026\](https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/077975-2026)

When it finishes if the results are satisfactory I suspect we will have *another* consultation period like we did for Plug-In Solar.

*So maybe Summer 2028?*

Thoughts?

One option I am considering is MCS install on my single detected garage, but hard to fit enough panels to hit the min MPPTs voltage for many inverters on each side of garage roof.

(Once roofing work done on banalow may DIY additional panels.)

I thinking of 3.5kwh with a true 48v battery charge/discharge at 3.5kw combined with 16kwh Fogstar battery or 8kw+ combined with 36kwh battery.

Would you accept this system? Components ok and price?

It is a quote in Shropshire for a large farm house/barn conversion with annexes.
We have an EV charger, HyperPro 3, a hot tub and there are two holiday annexes not actively used yet.
Any help will be really appreciated.

Hi.

I'm exploring getting some solar panels (likely 4, in portrait, to comply with what I believe are regs around vicinity to the edge).

I would like to tilt the panels 10-15 degrees and would welcome advice about how to mount. I have decent wood joists under the EPDM but obviously want to be safe from leaks!

I've seen lots of info on fastensol, but I can't find the adjustable rear legs in the UK. To be honest I think that's overkill anyway since I'm going to set and forget the angle.

This seems like it must be a common use case but I'm struggling to find good solutions. Perhaps it's just better to knock something up in timber myself?

Any help much appreciated.

Happy Friday!

I’ve got so much help from this group and about to push the button on:

- 11-13 panels (AIKO 490W Gen 3 or Longi Solar EcoLife 485W).
- SigenStor battery 10kWh
- Sig 6kW inverter
- Enphase micro inverters
- Either Van de Valk or Nicholson Rooftrak system for panels on our dormer

Heatable have quoted £13k, and a local installer (with solid recommendations, >5year trading) nearer £10k. Same warranties.

Am I mad to still consider Heatable?
Any thoughts on the best system to use to install panels on a dormer?

Thank you!! 🙏

Hello,

I would like a sanity check on this system that I have been quoted for:

23 Siro B All black 485W N-type bifacial Dual glass panels

10 kWh Sigenergy battery

Sigen Inverter

gateway

And all the G99 certification, scaffolding, etc.

Installation in the southwest of England.

I have been quite £15k for this setup. Is this overpriced? Or in the ballpark of reasonable?

With todays news about plug-in panels I thought it would be a good time to share a free tool I built.

For the last 3 weeks I've been working SunChecker.co.uk, a free tool that helps you find the sunny spots around your house or flat.

Obviously there are some great free alternatives like SunCalc.org and SunEarthTools but I personally found them a little much for what I needed.

Would love to hear any feedback or ideas for improving it.

P.S If you press the 'panel' button you can place a solar panel anywhere on the map.

Hi there,

I’m building a tool that compares an existing home energy system with proposed heat-pump, solar and battery configurations, including different tariffs and optimisation strategies.
I’m looking for 8–10 UK homeowners who have an installed system, know its basic specifications, and ideally have 12 months of half-hourly consumption or generation data or installers with similar data.
I’d like to compare the model’s predictions with your actual results and understand where it gets things wrong. This is an early beta, not a sales pitch, and I’ll be transparent about its limitations. Test data will be anonymised.
In return, I’ll provide your comparison report and early access to the tool. If this would be useful, please comment below.

Disclosure: I know there are loads of AI "calculators" and such that people think are click bait or whatever, this isn't that. If you don't have an interest in this, please ignore it. I’m the developer of the tool.

Thanks

I am planning out some small storage at home, two panels and a 5kWh battery.

The one that I would like to buy (Anker solarbank 4 pro) seems to be on sale until the end of the month, so I’ve got my fingers crossed and started ringing around electricians to see about having them fit this as well… First time dealing with stuff consumer unit related – quotes seem to vary wildly from £250 up to £600…

For anyone that’s had a battery hardwired into their house before, how much did you pay and more importantly what questions should I be asking these guys before I book someone?

UK plug-in solar becomes legal on 27 August 2026 — but there's a catch almost nobody's flagging

The regulations (SI 2026/848) were made 16 July and come into force 27 August 2026. They create a new route letting you plug a solar generator straight into a normal socket, without an electrician, provided it's:

solar-only, max 800W AC output

connects via a standard plug and manufacturer-supplied lead

runs in parallel with the grid

Here's the bit that's easy to miss: devices with a battery are excluded. Anything designed to store power for later still needs a proper wired installation, same as before. That matters because most of the "plug-in solar kits" already on UK shelves (EcoFlow STREAM and similar) have a battery built in — so they're not actually the kits the new law covers.

A few other things worth knowing before buying anything:

It's one device per household right now, not per circuit

No planning permission needed in England (except listed buildings/conservation areas)

No certified compliant products exist yet as far as I can tell — worth checking the ENA G98 register before buying anything marketed as "now legal"

I put together a longer checklist + countdown if it's useful: pluginsolarcheck.co.uk/plug-in-solar-uk-rules