Grants & funding
UK solar grants and funding, tracked
Current UK solar and home-energy schemes, eligibility rules, benefits and closing dates.
Not a government service. UKSolars is an independent company. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting on behalf of the UK Government, DESNZ, Ofgem, MCS or any local authority. We do not administer any grant scheme, we cannot approve an application, and we never charge for anything a government provides free.
How we are paid. We are paid a fee by installers when we introduce a homeowner who asks for a quote. It does not change your price, and we are not paid more by one installer than another for the same job. In full.
Every UK solar and home energy scheme, and where it stands
| Scheme | Status | Where | Who qualifies | What you get | Deadline | Important conditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ECO4 | closing | Great Britain | Low-income households on qualifying benefits, or referred by a local authority under LA Flex. | A whole-house retrofit package delivered by an energy supplier’s contractor. Solar may be included as part of it. | 31 December 2026 | Solar is rarely funded on its own. ECO4 works on a whole-house basis and usually funds insulation or a heating measure first, with solar attached only where the modelling supports it. Pages promising "free solar panels through ECO4" are describing an outcome most applicants will not get. |
| Warm Homes: Local Grant | open | England | Privately owned home in England, EPC D to G, and any ONE of: an area in IMD income deciles 1–2 (no income check), low-income proxies such as qualifying benefits, or household income of £36,000 or less. | Energy efficiency and low-carbon heating measures, funded through your local authority. Solar panels are named explicitly among them. | Runs while local authority funding lasts | It is administered council by council, so the delivery partner, the opening date and the extra local criteria all differ by authority. There is no single national application, and "eligible" nationally does not mean available where you live. Social housing is not covered — that is the separate Social Housing Fund. |
| Warm Homes Plan | ongoing | UK-wide, with devolved delivery | Grants target low-income and fuel-poor households. The loan element is aimed more broadly, with fuller eligibility still to be published. | £15bn to upgrade up to 5 million homes by 2030, including solar PV and batteries. Up to £1.7bn of that goes to low- and zero-interest consumer loans. | Running now; schemes consolidate from 2027/28 | The plan is already delivering through Warm Homes: Local Grant and the Social Housing Fund. These merge into a single low-income scheme from 2027/28. Per-household grant levels and full loan terms are not yet published. |
| 0% VAT on domestic solar | closing | UK | Any domestic installation. No income or benefit test. | Zero-rated VAT on the supply and installation, rather than the 5% reduced rate. | 31 March 2027, then reverts to 5% | It is not a grant and no one applies for it — a compliant installer simply zero-rates the invoice. The saving is real but modest, and it is not a reason on its own to rush a £7,000 decision. |
| Smart Export Guarantee | ongoing | Great Britain | Any MCS-certified installation up to 5MW with a smart meter capable of half-hourly export readings. | Payment for every unit you export, at a rate the supplier sets. | No end date | Suppliers set their own rate, and the spread is enormous. The best rates are frequently tied to taking your import from the same supplier, which can cost more than the export pays. |
| Solar Together | ongoing | Participating councils | Anyone in a participating local authority area during a registration window. | Group-buying scheme — a bulk-negotiated price, not a grant. | Runs in rounds; registration windows are short | Group buying is not funding. It can produce a good price, but it commits you to one installer chosen by the scheme, and independently obtained quotes sometimes beat it. |
| Home Energy Scotland | open | Scotland | Scottish homeowners, with the interest-free loan element income-tested. | Grant plus interest-free loan funding for renewables and efficiency measures. | Ongoing, subject to budget | Budgets are annual and can be paused mid-year. Confirm the current position with Home Energy Scotland directly before committing to an installer. |
| Nest | open | Wales | Welsh households on a low income living in an energy-inefficient home. | Free home energy improvements from the Welsh Government scheme. | Ongoing | Nest is heating-led. Solar appears far less often than the marketing around it suggests. |
| Northern Ireland schemes | open | Northern Ireland | Varies by scheme. | NI sits outside GB schemes entirely — different regulator, different network operator, no SEG. | Varies | Northern Ireland has no Smart Export Guarantee, and NIE Networks handles connections. Check that guidance is written for Northern Ireland rather than Great Britain. |
| Great British Insulation Scheme | closed | Great Britain | Closed to new applications. | Insulation measures. It never funded solar. | Scheduled to end April 2026 | This scheme funded insulation only, never solar, and is closed to new applications. |
This is one filterable table rather than a page per scheme per nation. Every row links to its full write-up where one exists, and every date is footnoted to gov.uk, Ofgem or DESNZ in the sources block below.
Not sure which of these applies to you?
Six questions and an answer on screen: including when the answer is that you do not qualify for anything today. No email needed to see it.
What has changed, and when
Every entry is dated and linked to the government or regulator publication that made the change. This log is appended to, never rewritten: the archive is the point.
What has changed, and when
- 2026-08-23
Corrections to this site
A primary-source verification pass corrected five things we had wrong. The Warm Homes Plan does not open in January 2027 — it is already delivering, with its schemes merging from 2027/28. GBIS was scheduled to end in April 2026, not 31 March. Plug-in solar is capped at 800 VA rather than 800 W, with PV modules allowed to 2,000 W DC, and compliance runs through the ENA Type Test Register rather than a "whole-kit certification". Warm Homes: Local Grant has three income pathways, not one. And the Future Homes Standard comes into force on 24 March 2027.
- 2026-08-23
0% VAT
Clarified that the zero rate has covered electrical storage batteries since 1 February 2024, including a standalone battery retrofitted on its own and charged from the grid. We had previously described the retrofit position as uncertain; VAT Notice 708/6 is explicit.
- 2026-08-27
Plug-in solar
Plug-in solar becomes lawful in Great Britain under SI 2026/848, capped at 800 VA, solar only, and only for devices listed on the ENA Type Test Register.
- 2026-07-16
Plug-in solar
DESNZ publishes Interim Product Specification v2.0, confirming an 800 VA / 3.5 A cap with PV modules allowed up to 2,000 W DC, and placing battery systems and battery-integrated solar devices outside the scope.
DESNZ — Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification v2.0
- 2026-03-31
GBIS
The Great British Insulation Scheme closes and is not replaced.
- 2026-01-21
Warm Homes Plan
The Warm Homes Plan is published: £15bn to upgrade up to 5 million homes and lift up to 1 million households out of fuel poverty by 2030, delivered initially through the existing Warm Homes Social Housing Fund and Warm Homes: Local Grant.
- 2026-01-15
ECO4
The consultation response confirms a nine-month extension to 31 December 2026, and that there will be no ECO5.
How we check scheme information
Every date and threshold above is tied to a primary source in a register that records who last read it and when. If a fact has not been re-read from the source, the page asserting it is held out of Google's index automatically: no matter how finished the writing is.
Open right now
Schemes you can apply to today, with their closing dates.
Warm Homes: Local Grant
You are on a low income and want to know what is open now.
Read it →ECO4, and the 31 December 2026 deadline
You have heard ECO4 pays for solar and want the real position.
Read it →The 0% VAT rate on domestic solar
You want to know whether the March 2027 deadline should change your timing.
Read it →Solar Together and group-buying schemes
Your council has emailed you about a solar group buy.
Read it →What replaces them
The transition is where every competitor page is wrong. ECO4 ends, the Warm Homes Plan begins, and they do not work the same way.
Claims to be careful with
"Free solar panels" is the highest-volume search in this category and the one most likely to end in a doorstep sale.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Devolved schemes with their own rules, budgets and application routes.
By local authority
Warm Homes: Local Grant is administered council by council. Published only where the delivery partner and local criteria have been verified.
Common questions
Can I get solar panels completely free in 2026?
Has ECO4 ended?
What replaces ECO4?
Do I need to be on benefits to get any help?
Is this site run by the government?
Check whether you qualify
Answer six questions and see the result on screen. No email required.
Get grant updates
We will email you when a scheme, threshold or deadline changes.