Permission and the rules
Will I need planning permission?
Most homes will not, but it turns on the house. The permitted development right for solar equipment carries conditions, and a house that fails any of them needs an application. Those conditions cover how far equipment stands proud, conservation areas, listed buildings, scheduled monuments and, since 27 August 2026, wooden surfaces.
What is the rule about wood?
Since 27 August 2026 the right has excluded a plug-in panel on a wooden wall, a balcony or timber cladding, both for houses and for blocks of flats. A weatherboarded house or a timber balcony falls outside it.
Somebody mentioned a transitional period.
There is one, and it ends on 27 August 2027. Through that year either set of rules can be used, the old wording or the new. We will tell you which of the two works better for your house.
The house is listed.
Then it takes planning permission and listed building consent, and the permitted development right is no help. Speak to the council before you order anything. The same goes for a house standing in the grounds of a listed building, or on a scheduled monument.
The panel itself
What the specification allows, and what it leaves out. Every figure here is from the interim product specification, version 2.0, July 2026.
Limits and kit
Can I have more than one?
One per home. One device is permitted per final ring circuit, and the specification then hands over to the network rules. Under G98 Issue 2 Amendment 1 a household may have one, and that stands until the rule changes.
Can I add a battery?
Not within the approved class. The specification leaves out plug-in batteries, and devices with storage built into them, along with rooftop PV systems, building integrated PV and anything that generates from something other than solar.
Is the kit I have been shown an approved one?
It has to be registered. A manufacturer must have the device type tested against G98, list it on the ENA Type Test Register and hold confirmation before selling it. Anything missing from that list has not been through the check.
What are the electrical caps?
The cap to the mains is 800 VA and 3.5 A. Up to four panels may feed one inverter, no more than two of them in series, and together the panels may come to 2000 W. Past 960 W of panel capacity the specification wants somebody qualified to look at it.
What it would make here
Modelled with PVGIS for one point near Norwich, at 0.8 kWp with 14 per cent system losses and nothing shading the panel.
What would a year of it come to?
About 802 kWh from one 800 watt device on an unshaded south facing roof near Norwich. Set on a frame in the garden at 30 degrees it comes to about 795. Fixed flat to a south wall it drops to about 594. and flat to an east wall to about 412, which is close to half the roof figure.
Is this a good part of the country for it?
Yes. Of the regions in our figures it sits near the top, behind the South East. The gap between the best and worst regions in Britain is narrower than the gap between a good position and a poor one at the same house.
Does everything it makes come off my bill?
No, and this is the number people misread most. Your saving comes from the electricity the house happens to be drawing while the panel is producing. Storage sits outside the approved class, so you cannot keep the rest for the evening.
What if something shades it?
All of these numbers assume clear sky above the panel. Trees, chimneys, dormers and the house next door each cut into that, and no model can see them from a map. Somebody has to look.
PVGIS figures at 0.8 kWp with 14 per cent system losses, taken at a point near Norwich on 13 September 2026. Equipment caps read off version 2.0 of the interim product specification, July 2026.
Money, renting and insurance
The questions that come after the rules, and the ones where we would rather say we do not know than guess.
The practical side
Why are there no prices here?
We have no figure we would be willing to defend. Kit prices move about and the socket work is different in every house. We would rather quote you once we know what your surface is.
We rent, or the flat is leasehold.
The landlord or the freeholder has to say yes first. The government response to the consultation records lease restrictions and building management as things the regulations have not solved. Ask first.
Will my home insurance care?
It might. Instructions that come with a compliant device are required to tell you to ask. Ring your insurer before the panel arrives.
Our wiring has not been touched in years.
Get an electrician to look over the socket and the circuit first. Older wiring came up again and again in the consultation as the practical risk with these devices.
Not sure your surface qualifies? Ask us
Your postcode and the spot you have in mind. We'll tell you where it stands.
We cover Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, including Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Peterborough and Luton.
- Norfolk
- Suffolk
- Essex
- Cambridgeshire
- Hertfordshire
- Bedfordshire
Where would you put it?
Just your name, email, postcode and the spot you mean. We email back what the rules say about that spot and what it should make over a year.