Solar Panel Finance UK 2026: Loans, Grants, Leases and Your Rights

Solar panel finance in the UK means paying for a rooftop system with installer credit, a personal loan, a mortgage further advance or a government-backed Warm Homes loan of up to £15,000, some at 0 % interest. Low-income households may get panels free through the Warm Homes: Local Grant, ECO4 or Nest. Credit arranged by the installer carries Section 75 protection; a lease of your roof can complicate a sale.

Finance changes the arithmetic of solar more than any panel choice. A typical system that pays back in about ten years when bought outright can take far longer once interest is added, and the history of solar sales in Britain includes many complaints about loans sold on promises that the panels would cover the repayments. This guide sets out each way to pay, what it costs over ten years at the rates lenders published in November 2026, the grants that can replace a loan altogether, and the legal protections that apply when something goes wrong.

The figures assume a conventional installed system fitted by an MCS-certified installer. For the installation process itself, from survey to certificate, see our guide to solar panel installation in the UK.

The ways to pay at a glance

Six routes cover almost every home solar purchase in Great Britain. They differ in cost, in who owns the panels, and in the protection you get if the installer gets it wrong.

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The rest of this guide takes each route in turn. Grants come later because they are limited to households that meet income or benefit tests; most buyers will compare cash, installer finance and a Warm Homes loan.

Paying cash

Cash is the simplest and usually the cheapest way to buy solar. There is no interest, no credit check and no agreement to read. What you give up is the return the money would have earned elsewhere. At an assumed 3 percent savings rate, £7,000 left in an account would grow by about £2,400 over ten years before tax; at 4 percent, by about £3,400. Those figures are our arithmetic, not a forecast of rates.

Two details matter when paying outright. First, VAT: installing solar panels in a home is zero-rated until 31 March 2027, after which HMRC guidance says the 5 % rate applies. The relief covers the installer’s supply of materials and labour together. Panels bought without installation carry the standard 20 % rate, which is why retail kits cost more than their parts suggest.

Second, deposits and stage payments. Paying most of the price before the scaffolding goes up exposes you if the installer fails. RECC members must meet its requirements on contracts, deposits and warranties, including financial protection in case the installer ceases trading. Keep any deposit modest, and if you can, pay it by credit card: that brings the whole contract within Section 75, as explained below, even though the balance is paid from savings.

Installer finance: how it works

Most installers and energy suppliers offer a loan at the point of sale. The installer is almost never the lender. It acts as a credit broker and introduces you to a finance company, which pays the installer and collects your repayments. E.ON, for example, describes its installation business as a credit broker for HomeServe Finance; Wickes lists Creation Consumer Finance as its lender; Good Energy says it is an appointed representative of Shermin Finance, which introduces applications to a panel of lenders.

A firm that arranges or provides consumer credit must be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, or act as the appointed representative of a firm that is. The FCA’s advice is to check its Firm Checker or the Financial Services Register before you sign. If a firm is unauthorised, you lose access to the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

What the numbers on a finance quote mean

• Representative APR. The annual percentage rate shown in an advert. Under the FCA’s current definition, it is the rate at or below which the firm expects to lend under at least 51 percent of the agreements the advert produces; the FCA consulted in 2026 on whether to change that threshold. The rest may be offered more. Your own APR appears in the pre-contract information and the agreement.
• Interest rate. The rate charged on the balance. It is a little lower than the APR, which also folds in compounding and any compulsory fees.
• Total amount payable. The figure that matters most: the cash price plus all interest and fees. E.ON’s representative example on 4 November 2026 showed £9,695 of credit over 120 months at 4.6 % APR, £100.38 a month and £12,045.60 in total.
• Term. Longer terms cut the monthly payment and raise the total cost. The difference over ten years can run to thousands of pounds.
• Deposit. Some offers need none, others 10 to 25 percent. Good Energy, for example, quotes a 25 % deposit capped at £5,000.
• Early repayment. Regulated loans can be repaid early. Ask how the settlement figure is worked out and whether any interest is charged after you settle.

Rates published in November 2026

The table shows finance terms that installers and suppliers published on their own sites. These are market observations, not offers, and your rate depends on your credit record.

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The spread is wide. On the same £7,000, ten years at 9.9 % costs about £2,100 more than ten years at 4.6 %. Ask every installer you get a quote from for its finance terms, and compare them with a loan you arrange yourself.

Your legal protections when you borrow

Credit brings rights that a cash buyer does not have. They matter most in solar, where the product is installed on your roof and its value depends on how much it generates over many years.

Three parts of the law work together:

• Section 75 covers installer-arranged loans (a debtor-creditor-supplier agreement in the Act’s language) and credit cards. It lets you claim against the lender if the installer made untrue statements or broke the contract, which is valuable if the installer has stopped trading.
• Section 56 treats what the salesperson said during negotiations as said on behalf of the lender. The Ombudsman relied on it in the decision described below.
• Section 140A lets a court, and the Ombudsman in deciding what is fair, look at whether the relationship between lender and borrower is unfair, for example because of misleading claims at the point of sale.

What does not carry Section 75 protection is a personal loan you take out yourself from a bank and use to pay the installer. The lender has no arrangement with the supplier, so the loan is a debtor-creditor agreement. The same applies to a mortgage further advance. Paying even a small part of the price by credit card restores Section 75 cover for the purchase, subject to the price limits, which is why a deposit by card is a sensible habit.

The 14-day right to withdraw

Section 66A gives you 14 days to withdraw from most regulated credit agreements without giving a reason. The period starts the day after the agreement is made or after you receive your copy, whichever is later. You then have 30 days to repay the credit plus interest for the days you had it; no other fees are due. Agreements secured on land, which include mortgage further advances, are excluded.

Withdrawing from the loan is not the same as cancelling the installation. The installation contract has its own cancellation rights. RECC notes that in many cases you have 14 days to cancel a contract without penalty, depending on how and where it was made. If you withdraw from the loan but keep the installation contract, you must pay the installer another way.

The Warm Homes Loan Scheme

The government announced zero and low-interest loans for rooftop solar, batteries and heat pumps in the Warm Homes Plan of 21 January 2026. According to MoneySavingExpert’s report of the announcement, Monday 26 October 2026 marked the launch of the Warm Homes Loan Scheme. The government factsheet published the following day names ten lenders initially offering loans and sets out how it works.

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How the subsidy works. The government pays participating lenders a grant that must be passed on to borrowers as a lower interest rate. Under the scheme rules for lenders, the grant applies only to loans of three years or more and is meant to cut the rate by up to five percentage points from the lender’s starting rate; on long loans a cap on the grant can make the cut smaller. Some loans are interest-free, and terms run up to 30 years in some cases. The rules allow both unsecured personal loans, including point-of-sale finance through installers, and loans secured on the home as a first or second charge mortgage. Rates and terms are set by each lender, and the government had not published standard rates when we checked.

Who can apply. You must own the property, with or without a mortgage. It must be residential and in the UK, which makes this the one scheme in this guide that covers Northern Ireland as well as Great Britain. Lenders run their usual credit and affordability checks and may add rules of their own.

Installer. Solar panels and batteries must be fitted by an MCS-certified installer; you cannot do the work yourself. Some lenders work only with particular installers, others let you choose any MCS installer.

Where to apply. You apply to a lender, not to the government: directly, through an installer or retailer when arranging finance, or through your mortgage provider. The ten lenders listed on GOV.UK on 4 November 2026 were HomeServe Finance, Hometree Finance, The Money Co-Op, Propensio, Secure Trust Bank, Selina Finance, South Manchester Credit Union, Sunsave Energy, Tandem Bank and This Bank. More are expected.

Combining with grants. A Warm Homes loan can sit alongside the Boiler Upgrade Scheme or a Home Energy Scotland grant, but you cannot use a Warm Homes loan and other government funding to pay for the same improvement. After the work, the installation may be checked as part of an audit.

Two cautions. First, a loan product should say whether it is funded through the scheme; ask the lender to confirm it in writing. Second, if the product is secured on your home, the 14-day withdrawal right under Section 66A does not apply and missed payments put the property at risk. Read whether a Warm Homes product is secured before comparing its rate with an unsecured loan.

Green mortgages and further advances

If you have a mortgage, you can ask your lender for a further advance to cover solar, or switch to a product marketed as a green mortgage that rewards energy improvements with a lower rate or cashback. The appeal is the rate: mortgage borrowing is usually cheaper per year than an unsecured loan. The catch is the term.

Spread over 25 years, even a low rate adds up. In our arithmetic, £7,000 at 4.5 % over 25 years costs about £39 a month and about £11,600 in total, of which £4,600 is interest. After ten years you would have paid about £4,600 and still owe about £5,100. Clearing the advance over ten years instead, at the same rate, costs about £72 a month and £8,700 in total. The rate used here is an assumption for the example, not a quoted product.

Other points to weigh:

• Security. The advance is secured on your home, so the 14-day withdrawal right does not apply and Section 75 does not protect you against the installer.
• Fees. Arrangement, valuation and legal fees can outweigh a small advance. Ask for the total cost.
• Timing. A remortgage or further advance can take weeks; a 0 % installer offer may expire first. Under current HMRC guidance, installations completed after 31 March 2027 carry 5 % VAT.
• Green products. Some lenders link a rate discount to the property’s EPC rating after the work. Ask whether the solar installation alone moves the rating far enough.

The GOV.UK guidance confirms that some Warm Homes loans can be arranged through a mortgage provider, which may combine a mortgage-style term with the scheme’s subsidy.

Personal loans and credit cards

An unsecured personal loan from a bank or credit union is a flexible way to pay. You become a cash customer as far as the installer is concerned, which can help when negotiating, and you can choose a term that ends well before the panels are halfway through their life. The government’s own example of a typical loan is £10,000 at 8 % over seven years, about £155 a month.

The trade-off is protection. A loan you arranged yourself is a debtor-creditor agreement, so Section 75 does not apply and a claim against an installer that has disappeared goes nowhere. Paying the deposit by credit card closes most of that gap. Running the whole cost on a credit card is rarely sensible: card rates are high, and a typical credit limit is well below the price of a system.

Grants that can pay for solar

Grants replace a loan rather than adding to it, but they target low-income households and homes with poor energy ratings. Each nation runs its own schemes, so the H3 sections below cover them separately.

England

Warm Homes: Local Grant. Councils survey the home and organise and pay for agreed upgrades, which can include solar panels alongside insulation, heat pumps and controls. GOV.UK sets three conditions: the home is in England and privately owned (by you or your landlord), it has an EPC rating of D to G, and household income is usually £36,000 a year or less. Higher earners may qualify if they live in certain postcode areas or someone in the home receives certain benefits. Funding depends on what your council has available. Solar is a possible measure, not a guaranteed one.

ECO4. The Energy Company Obligation requires energy suppliers to fund improvements for eligible households across Great Britain. Ofgem says ECO4 applies to measures installed from 1 April 2022 and will run until 31 December 2026 after a nine-month extension. Ofgem’s delivery guidance makes solar PV an eligible heating measure only where the home’s heating, before or as part of the project, is a hydronic heat pump, a high heat retention electric storage heater or an electric heating system with a SAP responsiveness rating of at least 0.8. Solar is not allowed where a non-electric primary heating system is planned, minimum insulation conditions apply, and the total solar at a home is capped at 10 kWp. Batteries may be fitted during an ECO4 retrofit but earn no score. In short, ECO4 rarely pays for solar in a home heated by a gas boiler.

Great British Insulation Scheme. It funded mostly single insulation measures, not solar, and Ofgem says it closed to new installations after 31 March 2026.

Scotland

Home Energy Scotland offers grants and interest-free loans to owner-occupiers for clean heating and energy efficiency, but standard solar PV is not on its current list. The page we read on 4 November 2026 says only solar PV-T systems, hybrid panels that produce electricity and hot water, are eligible, with a £5,000 loan and no grant. Batteries were not listed. Loans carry an administration fee of 1.5 %, capped at £150, and repayment periods of up to 5 years under £5,000, 10 years from £5,000 to £9,999 and 12 years above £10,000. Work must not start before a written offer.

For ordinary solar panels in Scotland, the realistic routes are cash, installer finance, a Warm Homes loan or ECO4 for eligible electrically heated homes until the end of 2026. GOV.UK says a Warm Homes loan can be combined with a Home Energy Scotland grant as long as they do not pay for the same improvement.

Wales

Nest, the Welsh Government’s scheme, offers free energy efficiency improvements to eligible households, and its page lists heat pumps, insulation and solar panels among the measures. The page does not publish income thresholds or EPC bands; eligibility is checked online or by phone on 0808 808 2244. ECO4 and the Warm Homes loans also apply in Wales.

Northern Ireland

ECO4 and the Smart Export Guarantee do not apply in Northern Ireland, and we did not find a current grant there that funds solar PV for homeowners. The Warm Homes Loan Scheme does cover the whole UK, so it is the main subsidised route. Without SEG, export income depends on what Northern Ireland suppliers choose to offer, which lengthens payback.

Lease, rent-a-roof and subscription schemes

During the feed-in tariff years, companies installed panels for free in return for a lease of the roof, typically for 20 to 25 years. The company kept the government payments; the householder got cheaper daytime electricity. The model has largely faded, but many of these leases remain, and similar offers still appear.

The problem arrives when you sell or remortgage. A lease of your roof is an interest in the property that binds the next owner, and most mortgage lenders’ conditions require their consent to any lease. UK Finance’s Lenders’ Handbook sets out lenders’ requirements for roof leases in clause 5.20 for England and Wales, with minimum requirements and a template letter for conveyancers; lenders may add their own conditions in part 2 of the handbook. In Northern Ireland a lease of roof space is not acceptable to lenders, and a lease of rights is required under clause 5.14. For Scotland, UK Finance says there is at present no guidance.

In practice, a buyer’s lender may refuse a property with leased panels, or insist on changes. Sellers then face three options: a deed of variation that brings the lease up to the required standard, a buy-out from the provider, or removal of the panels. Each costs money and time. If you are offered free panels in return for a lease, ask the provider whether its lease meets the UK Finance minimum requirements, what a buy-out would cost in year five and year fifteen, and who pays for removal and making good the roof.

Subscription plans are a different product. Several companies sell solar and battery systems for a fixed monthly fee over a long term, sometimes with ownership passing to you at the end. Leasing and subscription products are excluded from the first phase of the Warm Homes Loan Scheme, so they do not carry its subsidy. Treat such a plan like a loan: ask whether it is a regulated credit agreement, what the total payable is, who owns the equipment during the term, and what happens to the agreement if you move.

Worked comparison: ten years of paying for a 4 kW system

This is an example, not a quote. It shows how the route you choose changes the outcome.

System and price. A 3.68 kW system with about 4 kW of panels, fitted by an MCS installer. The government’s 2025/26 cost data put the median for systems up to 4 kW at £1,780 per kW and the mean for domestic retrofits at £2,228 per kW, which brackets a price of about £6,550 to £8,200. We use £7,000.

Value. In our installation guide’s worked example for Manchester, about 3,590 kWh a year, 40 percent used at home at the Ofgem price cap unit rate of 26.32p for October to December 2026 and the rest exported at an assumed SEG rate of 12p, gives about £636 a year, or £53 a month. Over ten years, at flat prices, that is about £6,360. Real prices will move, and a household using more of its own power earns more.

Repayments. Monthly figures are our calculations from the stated APRs; lenders’ own figures differ by pennies because they quote on a nominal rate.

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Three things follow. First, at ten years every route is still behind; solar panels typically carry performance warranties of 25 years or more, and the payback comes in the second decade, when there are no repayments left. Second, the cost of credit dominates: the difference between 0 % and 9.9 % over ten years, about £3,860, is more than six years of electricity value in this example. Third, no loan here is self-funding. Every monthly payment exceeds the £53 the system earns in an average month, and in winter it earns far less.

Cash looks worse than a 0 % loan in this table only because we charged it for interest forgone at 3 percent. If your savings earn less, or the money sits in a current account, cash and a 0 % loan come out almost level.

Mis-selling: what went wrong, and the warning signs

Solar finance has a troubled history in Britain. During the feed-in tariff boom, some sellers cold-called householders and presented loans as self-funding, quoting generation and savings that the systems never reached. Many complaints reached the Financial Ombudsman Service against the lenders, under Sections 56, 75 and 140A.

One published decision shows how the Ombudsman approaches them. In DRN-3770524, issued in late 2022 (the parties had until 5 December 2022 to respond), a couple had bought a system in 2015 with a 15-year Shawbrook Bank loan. Their feed-in tariff statements showed an average of 1,914 kWh a year against the 2,702 kWh in the sales quote, less than 71 percent of the estimate. The ombudsman found that the generation figures had induced the purchase, upheld the complaint and ordered the bank to pay the difference between the promised and actual income with 8 % simple interest, to keep topping it up for the rest of the loan, and to pay £100 for the inconvenience on top of the £200 it had offered. Other decisions have gone the other way where the evidence did not show a misrepresentation; each case turns on the paperwork.

Warning signs at the point of sale:

• “The panels pay for themselves from day one.” As the comparison shows, repayments on any normal loan exceed the average monthly value of a typical system.
• Pressure to sign on the day. A discount that expires tonight is a sales tactic. RECC forbids its members from using unfair selling tactics at any stage up to signing.
• No written performance estimate. MCS installers must give one. Compare it with PVGIS figures for your area.
• Finance terms only shown as a monthly figure. Ask for the APR, the term and the total amount payable in writing.
• A broker you cannot find on the FCA register. Check before you sign, not after.
• Self-consumption assumptions you would not recognise. A quote that assumes you use 75 percent of your solar power at home, while you are out at work all day, inflates the savings.

How to complain

Choosing a finance route, step by step

Questions to ask about any finance offer

• What is my APR, and is it the representative rate? The representative APR applies to at least 51 percent of the expected agreements, not necessarily to you.
• What is the total amount payable? Including all interest and fees, over the full term.
• Is the loan secured on my home? Secured loans lose the 14-day withdrawal right and put the property at risk.
• Can I repay early, and at what cost? Ask for an example settlement figure.
• Who is the lender, and who is the broker? Both should be on the FCA register.
• Is this product funded through the Warm Homes Loan Scheme? If so, what audit or inspection may follow.
• What happens if I sell the house? For a loan, it usually stays with you or is settled; for a lease or subscription, ask what the buyer must take on.
• What does the performance estimate assume? Orientation, shading and self-consumption. Ask how the savings figure was calculated.

Common mistakes and edge cases

• Comparing monthly payments. A 15-year loan looks cheaper per month than a 5-year one and costs far more. Fix: compare the total payable over the same term.
• Buying an oversized system to make the finance look better. More panels raise the loan and the export share, which earns less than electricity used at home. Fix: size the system to your use; our guide to how much electricity a solar panel produces helps with the numbers.
• Taking a secured loan without noticing. Some subsidised products are second charges on the home. Fix: ask directly and read the agreement.
• Assuming a personal loan carries Section 75. It does not if you arranged it yourself. Fix: pay a deposit by credit card or use installer-arranged credit.
• Signing a roof lease without legal advice. It can block a sale years later. Fix: check it against the UK Finance minimum requirements before signing.
• Starting work before a grant offer. Home Energy Scotland and council grant schemes do not pay retrospectively. Fix: wait for the written offer.
• Ignoring the VAT deadline. Installation in a home is zero-rated until 31 March 2027. Fix: if timing matters, build in lead times for finance approval and installation.
• Forgetting the SEG paperwork. Export payments in Great Britain need an MCS certificate and a smart meter. Fix: collect the certificate within 30 days of commissioning and apply to a SEG supplier; see our guide to the Smart Export Guarantee.

When a smaller purchase makes more sense

If a loan for a rooftop system does not add up, a plug-in solar kit is the low-cost alternative in England, Scotland and Wales since 27 August 2026. Kits of up to 800 W plug into a socket, need no installer and cost a few hundred pounds, usually paid in cash. They carry 20 % VAT, earn no SEG payments in most cases and save far less: about £70 to £110 a year by the government’s figures, as our guide to what plug-in solar saves explains. Compare kits at the budget end in our guide to plug-in solar kits under £400.

For a full rooftop system, the cheapest finance is usually the one you do not need: a grant if you qualify, cash if you have it, then a 0 % or low-rate Warm Homes loan over the shortest term you can afford.

Next steps

• Solar panel installation in the UK: process, timeline and cost
• Solar panel kits in the UK compared
• How much plug-in solar saves in the UK