Solar panel price history, 2013 to 2026
Prices fell steadily for six years, then rose more than half in three, and have been falling again since. Anyone quoting you what solar ‘used to cost’ is probably remembering the 2019 trough — and anyone who got a quote in 2023 was buying at the top.
Three phases, and only the middle one gets talked about.
- 2013/14 to 2019/20 — a slow, fairly steady fall, from £1,897 to £1,481 per kW. This is the era people remember as “when solar got cheap”.
- 2020/21 to 2023/24 — a rise of about 53%, to a peak of £2,263 per kW. If you were quoted in this window, you were quoted at the top of the market.
- 2024/25 to now — falling again, to £1,780 per kW, about 21% below the peak.
Net movement over thirteen years, in cash terms: about 6% cheaper. Not the story most people expect.
The series
| Financial year | Median £/kW | Mean £/kW | Installations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013/14 | £1,897 | £2,049 | 54,429 |
| 2014/15 | £1,904 | £2,028 | 72,092 |
| 2015/16 | £1,665 | £1,807 | 91,783 |
| 2016/17 | £1,667 | £1,840 | 23,328 |
| 2017/18 | £1,698 | £1,825 | 22,146 |
| 2018/19 | £1,667 | £1,806 | 35,700 |
| 2019/20 | £1,481 | £1,647 | 25,341 |
| 2020/21 | £1,500 | £1,699 | 29,754 |
| 2021/22 | £1,732 | £1,893 | 63,074 |
| 2022/23 | £2,250 | £2,372 | 117,987 |
| 2023/24 | £2,263 | £2,392 | 119,860 |
| 2024/25 | £1,884 | £2,110 | 150,432 |
| 2025/26 | £1,780 | £2,008 | 187,554 |
Source: Solar photovoltaic (PV) cost data, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, release 2025-26, published 28 May 2026. OGL v3.0. Derived by the department from the MCS Installation Database — prices paid, not prices advertised.
What the shape tells you
The 2019/20 trough is the number in people’s heads. It is what fed a decade of “solar keeps getting cheaper” commentary, and it is why a 2026 quote can feel expensive to someone who last looked in 2019. On this series, we are still 20% above that trough.
The 2022–2024 peak was steep and quick. A 53% rise across three years is not a normal price movement in a mature product. Anyone who bought in that window paid materially more than someone buying the same system today, which is worth knowing if you are comparing notes with a neighbour.
The recovery is real but partial. Two consecutive years of falls have given back about 21% of it.
The most common misreading of solar economics is to track the world price of photovoltaic modules and assume UK installed prices follow.
They do not, and this series is the evidence. Global module prices fell heavily across this period. UK installed cost per kW ended it roughly where it started, in cash terms.
The reason is in the cost per kW breakdown: much of what you pay is scaffolding, labour, electrical work, certification and the visit — a UK construction cost base, not a commodity price. When you read that module prices have collapsed, that is true and it is a small part of your quote.
The volume story underneath
The installation counts in the table are as interesting as the prices.
Installations recorded in the 0–4 kW band ran at 54,000 to 92,000 a year to 2015/16, collapsed to 22,000 to 36,000 across the late 2010s, and then climbed steeply to 188,000 in 2025/26 — more than at any point in the series.
We are not going to attribute that from a cost dataset. What we will note is that the low-volume years overlap the period when Feed-in Tariff rates were falling and the scheme closed to new applicants, and the recovery overlaps the electricity price rises from 2021 onwards. Coincidence in time is not causation, and this series cannot distinguish them.
What it does establish is that the market today is several times larger than in the period most of the folklore comes from.
Should you wait?
The honest answer is that we do not know, and neither does anyone quoting you a forecast.
What the history supports:
- Direction is not reliable. Six years of falls were followed by three years of sharp rises. A trend is not a promise.
- Waiting is not free. A year of waiting is a year of generation you do not get. At roughly 3,000–4,000 kWh a year for a typical array, that is a real number, and it goes in the same column as the price you might save.
- The variation between quotes today is larger than the movement between years. The gap between the median and the mean in a single year — £1,595 against £1,808 per kW in 2025/26 — is comparable to a year of price movement. Getting three quotes is a more reliable saving than waiting.
That last point is the practical conclusion of this page. You have more control over which quote you accept than over what the market does.
Reading this against your own quote
If you are holding a quote now, the number that matters is not the history — it is the current benchmark, and whether your price per kW sits near it.
If you are comparing with what a neighbour paid, check when. A 2023 installation and a 2026 one are not comparable, and the difference is not the installer.
Sources
- Solar photovoltaic (PV) cost data Release 2025-26, published 28 May 2026. The long series is published on the Declared Net Capacity basis only; that is the basis used on this page.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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