Plug-In Solar Checker for UK Renters

Renting changes the plug-in solar question in two ways. You need someone else's permission, and you need the maths to work over a tenancy rather than over the twenty-five years a homeowner can assume. Both are answerable now, before the rules take effect.

The number that matters is not what the panels generate, it is how much of that you use while it is being generated. Plug-in solar has no export payment, so any electricity you are not using at the time is simply given away. That single input is why the same kit saves one household £80 a year and another £200.

Three numbers and one date carry most of it.

The legal change is SI 2026 No. 848, which comes into force on 27 August 2026. It defines a qualifying plug-in microgenerator partly by output: the device must have "a maximum rated alternating current output not exceeding 800 watts". That is a cap on what the inverter pushes into the socket, not on the panel area, which is why kits pair a larger panel array with an 800W inverter.

The device also has to meet the government's Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification, named in the legislation as version 2, published on 16 July 2026. Separately, connecting generation in parallel with the grid is notifiable to your distribution network operator under G98 (the engineering recommendation covering small generators), which is a notification rather than a permission.

One thing worth knowing before you spend: no plug-in solar kit is currently listed as compliant on the industry type test register. Treat "UK compliant" on a product page as a claim rather than as evidence until the register says otherwise.

Legality and permission are different questions, and renters need both.

Your landlord. Ask in writing, and make the reversibility explicit: nothing drilled, nothing permanently fixed, the kit leaves when you do. A landlord's usual objection is damage and liability, so answering both in the request is what gets a yes. Our landlord permission guide covers the wording.

The lease, if you are in a flat. A managing agent or freeholder typically controls balconies, external walls and anything visible from outside. Your landlord cannot grant what their own lease forbids, so in a managed block that is the second conversation.

Your network operator. G98 notification goes to the DNO, not to your energy supplier, and for plug-in solar it is a connect-and-notify step rather than an application you wait on.