Permission and the planning rules
Is permission needed for a plug-in panel?
For most homes, no, although the right carries conditions. Meet them and there is no application to make. Miss one and an application is exactly what is needed. We work out which of those describes your home before any money changes hands.
Which conditions can I check myself?
Equipment on a surface that abuts a highway is held to 200 mm of projection, and elsewhere the allowance is 400 mm. Nothing on a pitched roof may break the ridge line or stand more than 200 mm off the slope. Above a flat roof the ceiling is 600 mm.
Why are timber walls and balconies treated differently?
The right was rewritten on 27 August 2026 and the new wording names plug-in solar. For houses, and again for blocks of flats, it leaves out wooden walls, balconies and timber cladding. Shops advertise these panels for exactly those places, which is why we check it first.
Our home is listed. Does that rule it out?
It means permitted development gives you nothing to lean on. A listed home needs permission and listed building consent together, and the council's pre-application advice is worth having early. The answer is not automatically no, but the route is longer.
The device and its limits
What output is a device allowed?
Up to 800 VA of apparent power into the mains, drawing up to 3.5 A, at up to 253 V and 50 Hz. One inverter takes as many as four panels, no more than two of them in series per string, and the panels together may reach 2000 W of DC. Once panel capacity passes 960 W the specification wants somebody qualified to look at whether the installation suits the house.
Is there a way to verify a kit?
Yes. Before a device goes on sale the manufacturer has to type test it under G98, list it on the ENA Type Test Register and receive confirmation that it passed assessment. A product missing from that register has been assessed by nobody, however the sales page reads.
Does the approval cover storage?
No. The interim product specification sets plug-in battery systems aside, and it sets aside devices with storage built into them as well. A bundle that arrives with a battery attached sits outside what was approved.
What must it not be plugged into?
Not an extension cable, a multi-way adaptor, an RCD adaptor or a travel adaptor. The device has to carry that warning on it and repeat it in the instructions. An outdoor plug and socket also needs the socket rated IP55 or above.
Output, and why we quote rather than price
How much would a panel make here?
Modelled at a Nottingham location with nothing shading it, one 800 watt device on a south facing pitch at 35 degrees comes to roughly 760 kWh a year. Stand it on a garden frame at 30 degrees and it makes around 754. Fix it flat to a south wall and it drops to about 564, and to an east wall about 391. Each of those is a modelled best case for a single location, not a prediction for your address.
Does generating mean saving?
No. Your saving tracks how much electricity the house is drawing while the panel is working. Batteries sit outside the approved class, so whatever is left over cannot be held back for the evening.
Why are there no prices here?
Because we have not got a number we would defend. Kit prices move about, socket work differs from house to house, and a figure printed today would be wrong for somebody. We would rather price your house once we know what it is made of.
How much difference does shade make?
A great deal. Every number here assumes clear sky above the panel. Trees, chimneys, dormers and neighbouring houses all cut into it, and none of them shows up in a model.
Tenancies, insurance and old wiring
We rent, or we hold a lease.
Your landlord has to agree, or your freeholder if you hold a lease. Lease terms and building management were both raised in the consultation as brakes on take up, and the regulations did not settle them. Get that agreement first.
Will my home insurance care?
It may do. A compliant device has to come with instructions telling you to check, so make the call to your insurer before the kit is delivered.
Ours is an old house with old wiring.
Get an electrician to test the socket and its circuit before the device goes anywhere near it. Older wiring was raised again and again in the consultation as the real risk here, and this region has plenty of it.
How many can one household run?
One. The specification permits one on each final ring circuit, then gives way to the network rules, and G98 Issue 2 Amendment 1 holds a household to a single device until it is amended.
Answers on this page come from the Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification version 2.0, Planning Portal guidance on solar equipment, Ofgem's decision on the G98 change and PVGIS, all read on 13 September 2026.
Want to know if your house qualifies?
Give us the postcode and we'll go through it.
A postcode, plus the material your wall or roof is built from, is all we need to make a start. Back comes the rule that decides it at your address, with a yearly figure for the mounting you had in mind.
- Nottinghamshire
- Derbyshire
- Leicestershire
- Lincolnshire
- Northamptonshire
- Rutland
- Nottingham
- Derby
- Leicester
- Lincoln
- Northampton
Your house, in a few boxes
Postcode, email, your name, and where on the house the panel would go. We come back by email with what's allowed there and what it'd make in a year.
We email you back. Nothing is passed on and we take no commission from anyone.