- Plans are afoot to sell solar panels for balconies in the UK
- Retailers including Amazon, Currys and Asda are in talks
- These devices are expected to start at around £400.
While rooftop solar panels can help reduce electricity bills, installing them is an expensive and complicated business – problems that new ‘plug-in’ solar panels for balconies, which will hit major UK retailers, are trying to solve.
As The Guardian reported, these innovative panels simply plug into a regular three-prong socket. Everything plugged in at home, from refrigerators to computers, first uses solar energy before connecting to the electrical grid.
Representatives from Asda, Currys, B&Q, Amazon, Lidl, Wickes and Screwfix have just met with the Minister for Energy Consumption, Martin McCluskey, to set guidelines for the sale of these solar panels for balconies. It looks like they will be widely available in the near future and are expected to start at around £400.
Official research suggests savings of between £70 and £110 a year with a single panel, so you’ll have to use it for around four years before you make your money back. However, no professional installation or building permit is needed. A typical array of solar panels on a rooftop weighs thousands of pounds.
Coming soon
“Plug-in panels can be transformative for renters or people on lower incomes, so I welcome the conversation today with household names like B&Q and Currys showing great support for installing the panels in people’s homes,” McCluskey said, adding that they “will help make the UK less reliant on global fossil fuel markets.”
As well as reducing your electricity bills by around 30%, you’re also helping the planet, of course, and this is part of a wider push by the UK government to add more solar capacity. Official figures say there were 269,000 solar installations across the country during 2025, a new record and a 37% increase on the previous year.
If you don’t want to feed captured solar energy directly into your home’s electrical circuits, you can invest in a solar battery. We’ve already seen reasonably priced products in this category from Lidl and EcoFlow.
There is no set timeline, but the aim appears to be to get these panels on sale as soon as possible, and the UK government is now consulting on safety guidelines. Once they appear in stores, all you’ll need is a spare plug and some sun.
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