Solar grants and schemes: what is actually open

Most lists of UK solar grants include schemes that have closed, and schemes that never funded solar panels at all. This one says which is which, with the date we last checked each.

If you are on a lower income, start here

The Warm Homes: Local Grant is the one scheme on this page that pays for solar panels outright, and 277 English councils are in it. Solar PV is on its list of eligible measures and a battery is permitted alongside. Delivery closes 31 March 2028.

We have given it a page of its own, with the eligibility routes, the cost cap and every participating council.

There is no general solar panel grant in the UK. There is a tax relief that applies to everybody and expires, and there are means-tested schemes where solar is one measure among many.

Everything below is grouped by whether it actually pays for solar PV, and each entry says when we last checked.

Support that does pay for solar PV

Zero-rate VAT on installation

UK-wide Tax relief Closing

0% VAT until 31 March 2027

The only support that applies to every household regardless of income, property or benefits, and the one with a fixed expiry. Installation of solar PV is zero-rated for VAT, reverting to the 5% reduced rate afterwards.

A zero rate applies to the installation of certain specified energy-saving materials from 1 May 2023 to 31 March 2027.

From 1 April 2027 onwards these will revert to the reduced rate of VAT of 5%.

photovoltaic (PV) panels with cabling, control panel and AC/DC inverter

This is a relief on the installation, not a payment to you: it shows up as a lower quote, not a cheque. Because it is time-limited rather than means-tested, it is the one piece of support where the date matters more than your circumstances.

Warm Homes: Local Grant

England Grant, via your council Open Means tested

Solar panels explicitly among the funded measures

Delivered by local authorities in England for privately owned and privately rented homes with poor energy ratings. Solar panels are named in the government's own list of improvements an assessment might recommend.

Your home must be in England, be privately owned (either by you or your landlord), have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of D, E, F or G

Your household income must usually be £36,000 a year or less. If you earn more than that, you might still be eligible if either you live in a certain postcode area or someone in your household is getting certain benefits

They might suggest improvements like installing wall, loft and underfloor insulation, air source heat pumps, smart controls, solar panels

Solar is one option an assessor may recommend, not an entitlement you can apply for directly. The assessment drives what is offered, and insulation and heating usually come first.

What we could not confirm

  • How much funding is available per household — the GOV.UK page does not state a cap.
  • The date the scheme closes to applications.

Energy Company Obligation (ECO4)

UK-wide Supplier obligation Closing Means tested

Ends 31 December 2026, with no successor obligation

The long-running obligation on larger energy suppliers to fund efficiency measures in low-income and vulnerable households. It is a whole-house scheme built around insulation and heating rather than a solar scheme, and it now has a firm end date.

ECO4 will be extended by nine months, ending on 31 December 2026, to allow suppliers additional time to meet existing targets and remediate non-compliant installations

The government response records that no successor obligation follows ECO4; grant funding under the Warm Homes Plan takes its place. So a page telling you to "apply for ECO4 solar" in 2027 is describing something that does not exist.

What we could not confirm

  • Exactly when and how ECO4 funds solar PV. It is a secondary measure under a whole-house approach rather than a standalone solar grant, and we have not yet read the delivery guidance closely enough to state the conditions.

Open, but we could not confirm solar is covered

Listing these separately rather than guessing. If you know the answer, tell us.

Nest (Warm Homes Programme)

Wales Free improvements package Open Means tested

Open, but we could not confirm solar PV is included

The Welsh Government's scheme for low-income households in poorly rated homes. Eligibility is clearly published; the measures list is not, on the pages we read.

you own or privately rent your home (not local authority or housing association)

receive a means tested benefit or you live in a low-income household

your home has an asset rating of 54 (EPC E) or less; or an asset rating of 68 (EPC D) or less where you or a household member have a chronic respiratory, circulatory or mental health condition

The health-condition route to a higher EPC threshold is worth knowing: it brings EPC D homes into scope where a chronic respiratory, circulatory or mental health condition is present in the household.

What we could not confirm

  • Whether solar PV is among the measures Nest funds. The eligibility page does not list measures, and we are not going to assume either way.

Listed as solar funding, but is not

These appear on roundups of solar grants. They are here so you can stop looking for them.

Great British Insulation Scheme

UK-wide Supplier obligation Closed Means tested

Applications closed; scheme ends 31 March 2026

An insulation scheme, not a solar one — it appears on solar grant lists regularly and should not. Both the name and the measures are about insulation.

The service to check if you're eligible for free or cheaper home insulation has closed.

Installations must be complete by 31 March 2026, when the scheme ends.

Listed here precisely because it keeps appearing in roundups of solar funding. It funded insulation, and it is now closed to new applications.

Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan

Scotland Grant and interest-free loan Never covered solar

Standalone solar PV is not an eligible measure

Scotland's flagship scheme, generous for heat pumps and insulation, and routinely misreported as funding solar panels. Standalone solar PV does not appear among its eligible measures.

Hybrid solar PV / water heating — £5,000 loan, grant funding not available

The funding tables cover heat pumps, heat networks, solar thermal, biomass, wind and hydro. The only PV-related line is hybrid solar PV with water heating, at £5,000 as a loan with no grant element. If you have seen "£6,000 grant for solar panels in Scotland" quoted, that is not what the scheme's own tables say.

What we could not confirm

  • Whether standalone solar PV was ever eligible and was withdrawn, or was never included. The current published tables list solar thermal, wind and hydro but not solar PV on its own.

How to read this page

Every entry carries the date a human read the source, and the source is linked so you can check it. Where we could not establish something — how much the Warm Homes grant pays, whether Nest funds solar — the entry says so rather than leaving a confident-looking gap.

Two patterns are worth knowing before you start looking.

Almost all UK domestic energy support is means-tested and heating-first. The schemes are built around fuel poverty and around insulation and heat pumps. Solar PV appears in them as a secondary measure an assessor may recommend, not as something you apply for. If you are not on a low income or in a poorly rated home, the honest answer is that the VAT relief is the support available to you.

Scheme names outlive schemes. ECO4, the Great British Insulation Scheme and the Home Upgrade Grant all still circulate as live solar funding. Two of those are closing or closed, and none of them was ever a solar grant.

What we are still working on

The Home Upgrade Grant, local authority schemes including Solar Together bulk buying, Northern Ireland support, and the detail of how ECO4 treats solar PV under its whole-house approach. Each will be added when it can be sourced properly rather than summarised from another website.

If you know of a scheme genuinely funding solar PV that is not here, please tell us — with a link to the scheme’s own page, and we will read it.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Last verified: How we research this Suggest a correction
Was this page helpful?
Sign up to the newsletter