Solar Panel Prices

While solar panels are less expensive now than they used to be, there’s still an upfront cost to pay. Each solar panel will cost you between £350 and £550. A single solar panel is around 4m2 and will output between 400 and 450 kilowatt-hours per year.

The more solar panels you have on the roof, the more electricity you’ll produce to power your home. It also means that the cost of your installation will rise but you can recover all – or most – of that cost over the next 20 years because you’ll be paying less for your electricity. This doesn’t factor in any schemes, subsidies or solar panel grants you may be a part of, like the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG), which allows you to sell excess solar energy back to the grid. Excess energy won’t bring you £1000s each year, but you can still earn a fair amount depending on how much electricity your panels produce and how much you use.

Adding a solar battery storage system adds to the overall cost but means you can use solar electricity in the evening when solar panels can no longer produce electricity for your home.

We’ve listed some typical household solar panel costs that UK installers are currently charging for different sizes of solar panel systems:

Solar PV panels are designed to be low maintenance and capable of producing renewable energy for 20 years or more after installation. They’re also incredibly safe, as manufacturers and installers have to abide by some of the strictest health and safety regulations across all industry sectors.

Every now and again, a solar panel may stop working. Your manufacturer’s warranty will cover this and, in most cases, so will your installer guarantee. Always make sure to ask, but it means you don’t have to add more to the overall solar panel price.

If you’d like the peace of mind of having someone check over your system on a regular basis, there are maintenance companies offering this for a fixed annual price, but this is a personal decision if you notice something odd or think there might be damage, not a requirement.

Solar panel prices have decreased in price significantly over the last five to six years as more people look to purchase solar panels to fight rising energy costs from energy suppliers.

In 2017, there were 709,000 UK installations of solar panels on homes, workplaces, and in solar farms. If this trend continues, over 10 million homes in the UK will be fitted with solar panels by 2026 – meaning two fifths of the electricity we’ll use as a country during summer will come from solar panels.

By installing photovoltaic solar panels on your home, you’ll save money on your electricity bills each year. By joining the Smart Export Guarantee, energy companies will pay you money for the extra electricity your panels generate, which can help offset the cost of solar panels quicker than ever.

If we turn the clock back to the start of the decade, the average solar panel price for a system suitable for a family of three would be between £12,000 and £13,000. In today’s market, you’d be looking at paying between £4,900 and £6,100 – that’s over half the price in many cases!

Combined with higher energy bills, it means that the total cost could be recouped in just a few years. This makes it easy to see why so many people are choosing to install solar panels. It’s not just a British phenomenon, either – countries around the world are seeing a similar surge in installations from budget to premium panels as people look to have more of their annual electricity usage covered by solar electricity.

In short, yes, these are solar panel prices you should take advantage of if you can.

Most UK homeowners install a 3kW system. As mentioned earlier, the cost of solar panels needed for this system is between £4,900 and £6,100.

This figure is important, as you’ll need the solar panel prices and your current electricity bills to work out how long it will take you to recoup the value of your investment. Work out what you use and pay for without solar panels and then with solar panels. This is your savings, and you’ll use this to divide total solar panels cost, which will tell you how many months it will take to get that money back.

While it’s possible that energy bills will drop in price in the future, there’s no guarantee they’ll return to the levels they once were – or how long that will take. Higher energy bills impact every aspect of life, but with energy bills more than twice what they once were (and higher for others), there are huge savings to be made with solar panels.

Before installing any system, it’s important to make sure you can afford to do so, whether that’s through savings, a finance option, or through a subsidy scheme. While the cost of solar panels has come down compared to previous years, it can be a large price for some. Talk to your installer about the options available and spend time making sure you can absorb that initial solar panel cost.