Most people arrive at this subject holding one word they do not understand and needing the rest of the sentence. So this is an index rather than an essay. 27 entries, each one short, each one carrying the document it came out of.
The most a compliant device may deliver to the mains, measured as apparent power. The statutory instrument separately fixes rated alternating current output at 800 watts. Those are two different quantities and a listing that treats them as interchangeable is being careless with at least one of them.
Interim Product Specification v2.0; SI 2026/848
Where total panel capacity exceeds 960 W, the manufacturer must advise you to consider a professional assessment of your existing electrical installation. The specification records this as precautionary, following the principle that larger arrays warrant a closer look at what they are plugged into.
It is advice you are owed, not a prohibition. Almost no retail listing mentions the figure at all.
See also Panels, Wiring, older.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
The permitted development right rewritten on 27 August 2026 does not cover plug-in solar fixed to a wooden wall, a balcony or timber cladding, on a house or on a block of flats.
The market sells these devices as balcony kits almost universally. Where the balcony is timber or timber clad, the two positions are in direct conflict and the planning one wins.
See also Permitted development, Frames.
Planning Portal
The specification does not apply to plug-in battery systems, nor to plug-in solar integrated with a battery. A product with storage in the box is therefore outside the approved class however it is advertised.
Consultation respondents argued that excluding storage reduced the payback available to consumers. The exclusion was kept.
See also Payback.
Interim Product Specification v2.0; government consultation response
DC connectors must meet BS EN 62852, be supplied with the cables by the manufacturer, and be used only in matching pairs from a single product family. Where an adaptor makes a connection it has to be pre-assembled by the manufacturer.
They must never be disconnected under load, and the alternating current supply is switched off first.
See also Plug.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
Inside a conservation area or a World Heritage Site, the right does not cover panels on a wall fronting a highway. Other walls are not caught by that particular condition.
See also Listed buildings, Permitted development.
Planning Portal
The maximum current a compliant device may push. It sits alongside the 800 VA and 2000 W figures as one of three separate electrical ceilings, and all three have to hold at once.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
Not your energy supplier and nothing to do with who bills you. The distribution network operator owns the wires into your street, and for this region our working map names National Grid Electricity Distribution (East Midlands) plc.
Great Britain has fourteen such licence areas. Confirm yours on the operator's own postcode checker before relying on any map, ours included. The quickest route is the phone: dial 105, pay nothing, and the company that owns the cable answers.
See also Notification, G98.
Working map, secondary source, marked provisional
Extension cables, multi-way adaptors, RCD adaptors and travel adaptors are all excluded in terms. The specification says so once as a required warning on the device itself and once as required information in the instructions.
This is the rule most likely to be broken in a garden, which is precisely why it is stated twice.
See also Frames, Socket, outdoor.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
A panel on a frame at 30 degrees facing south returns within about one per cent of an ideal roof pitch across every point in the national dataset. It is fixed to no part of the building, which keeps it clear of the timber exclusion entirely.
See also Generation, Balconies.
PVGIS, queried 13 September 2026
Engineering Recommendation G98 governs how small generation connects in Great Britain. Three dates matter. Proposed 1 April 2026 by the Energy Networks Association. Approved by the Authority on 11 August 2026, in an Ofgem decision. Live from 27 August 2026, tied to the product regulations.
Northern Ireland is not inside this arrangement. It works to G98/NI and its position is unresolved.
See also Notification, One per household.
Ofgem decision document
At our representative point for this region, a compliant 800 W device returns 760 kWh a year on an ideal south-facing roof, 754 on a garden frame, 564 on a south wall and 391 on an east wall.
Every figure assumes nothing shades the panel at any hour. Shade removes more than the gap between the best and worst regions in the country.
PVGIS, queried 13 September 2026
Where the plug and socket are mounted outside the building, the socket has to be rated IP55 or better. Fitting one is work for an electrician rather than for the householder.
See also Socket, outdoor, Extension leads.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
The right does not extend to the grounds of a listed building or to a scheduled monument. A listed building itself needs planning permission and listed building consent together, and the guidance is to seek pre-application advice early.
See also Conservation areas.
Planning Portal
After installation, not before purchase, you complete a short online form for the operator giving your name, an email address and the address where the device is installed. The department estimates five to ten minutes and there is no fee and no inspection.
That description comes from the final stage impact assessment, which sets out the process government intended rather than imposing a penalty.
See also Distribution network operator, G98.
DESNZ final stage impact assessment
The product specification would allow one device per final ring circuit. The connection rules allow one per household, and where two limits disagree you live under the tighter one.
See also G98, Ring final circuit.
Interim Product Specification v2.0; G98 Issue 2 Amendment 1
The total direct current power of the modules may reach 2000 W, feeding an inverter that may deliver no more than 800 VA to the mains. Panel wattage and output are therefore different numbers, and a listing quoting only the larger one has told you about the input.
See also 800 VA, Assessment, professional.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
What reaches your bill depends on how much the house is drawing at the moment the panel is producing. With storage outside the approved class, anything not used at that moment is exported.
We do not publish a payback figure for this region, because doing so honestly needs retail prices we have not sourced from anywhere we would cite.
See also Batteries, Generation.
Government consultation response; our own open items
The right covering solar equipment on a house, a block of flats or a building within the curtilage was updated on 27 August 2026. A transitional year runs to 27 August 2027, in which the previous conditions may be relied on instead.
Conditions include sitting below the ridge with no more than 200 mm projection on a pitched roof, no more than 600 mm above a flat roof, and 200 mm or 400 mm projection on walls depending on whether the wall abuts a highway.
See also Balconies, Conservation areas.
Planning Portal
Alternating current plugs must be to the BS 1363 series with BS 1362 fuse links and additional contact protection, marked and labelled per BS 1363-1:2023 Clause 8 by a durable label or band near the plug.
See also Connectors, DC.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
Manufacturers must have the device type tested in accordance with G98, register it on the ENA Type Test Register, and obtain confirmation that it has been assessed as compliant before placing it on the market.
So compliance is a matter of record rather than of claim. A device that is not on the register has not been assessed, whatever the listing says.
See also G98.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
Smooth direct current residual current to the mains must not exceed 5 mA in normal operation or in the relevant fault conditions, per BS EN 62109-1 Clause 7.3.8.
See also Wiring, older.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
The specification permits a single plug-in solar product per household final ring circuit. The connection rules then narrow that to one per household regardless of how many circuits you have.
See also One per household.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
The most obvious places to stand one of these are a garden, a shed or an outside wall, and all three raise the question of where it plugs in. An outdoor socket must be IP55 or better and is not householder work.
See also IP55, Extension leads.
Interim Product Specification v2.0
For twelve months from the change, either the conditions as they stood immediately beforehand or the rewritten ones may be followed. Two different answers to the same question are therefore both correct until that window closes.
See also Permitted development.
Planning Portal
Respondents to the government consultation highlighted fire risk in older homes, particularly where wiring is old or poorly insulated. If connecting the device needs the circuit's overcurrent protection device replaced, that is work only a qualified electrician may carry out.
See also Residual current, Socket, outdoor.
Government consultation response; Interim Product Specification v2.0
Tell us which one and we will look it up, then add it.
This index covers what our sources cover. Where they are silent, we say so rather than filling the gap, and there are more silences in this subject than the market lets on.
Send the question with a postcode and we will answer it against the documents, name the licence area we can confirm for you, and run the generation figures at your coordinates rather than at Nottingham.