UK plug-in solar: entries marked compliant jump 37% in four days

The official list of compliant plug-in solar systems has just got a lot longer.

On 1 October, WattVerdict counted 84 entries marked compliant. Four days later there were 115.

That’s 37% more in less than a week. But it doesn’t mean 31 completely different solar kits have suddenly appeared in the shops. Here’s what actually changed.

What’s changed?

To be sold under Great Britain’s plug-in solar rules, a kit must be assessed and listed as compliant on the official register. The register is run by the Energy Networks Association (ENA), the industry body for the companies that run the electricity network.

Every entry on that list is marked either Compliant or Non-compliant. Compliant means it has been assessed as meeting the government’s product rules for plug-in solar. Our guide explains how to check a kit yourself.

WattVerdict takes a full copy of the plug-in solar list every day. These are the two copies we compared:

Source: WattVerdict copies of the ENA register, taken at 11:43am on 1 October 2026 and 12:10pm on 5 October 2026 (UK time).

So compliant entries went up by 31, which is 36.9%. The whole list, including non-compliant entries, went up by 34, or 33.7%.

Most of it happened in a single day. The count sat at 84 for four days running, then went to 109 between our copies on 2 and 3 October.

Source: WattVerdict daily copies of the ENA register, 28 September to 5 October 2026. One copy a day, taken between 10:40am and 12:10pm UK time.

Look at the right-hand column and you’ll see the list doesn’t only go up. It was 101 on 1 October and 98 the next day. Entries can drop off between one copy and the next, as well as appear.

Why did the number jump?

A big chunk of it comes from one supplier.

Worldwide Solar accounts for 21 of the 31. It had 10 entries marked compliant on 1 October and 31 on 5 October.

That isn’t 21 different inventions. Looking at the 21 entries themselves:

• All 21 are two-panel kits.
• They use one of two inverters, the box that turns the panels’ power into electricity your home can use: 11 use a Hoymiles model and 10 use a VaySunic model.
• The panels are from AIKO or JA Solar, in several different models.
• 9 are listed with a mounting system. 12 say the mounting system is not included.

In other words, the same few parts in different combinations, each with its own entry.

The other 10 are spread across six companies. Five are Perlight kits. Clean My Carbon, Segen, Jiangsu VDS, Fusion Renewables and Voltacon have one each.

The five Perlight kits weren’t brand new

Those five Perlight kits were already on the list on 1 October, marked non-compliant.

On 5 October the same five model names appear under updated reference numbers, marked compliant. The earlier reference numbers are no longer listed.

The register doesn’t say what changed, so we’re not going to guess. But it does mean some of the 31 are kits moving from one status to the other, not kits arriving for the first time.

Are all the new entries compliant?

No.

In all, 39 reference numbers were on the list on 5 October that weren’t there on 1 October. 31 were marked compliant. Eight were marked non-compliant: four from Thunder Energy, two from Voltacon, one from Fusion Renewables and one from Solen Energy UK.

A kit being on the list isn’t enough. The word to look for is Compliant.

Does 115 mean 115 kits to choose from?

No, and this is the bit that’s easy to get wrong.

One entry is one listed combination. As the Worldwide Solar entries show, the same inverter with a different pair of panels gets its own entry. So does the same kit with and without a mounting system.

So 115 compliant entries doesn’t mean 115 different boxes on a shop shelf.

The register also doesn’t tell you:

• whether a kit is on sale yet, or who sells it;
• what it costs;
• how many have been sold.

It’s a list of what has been assessed. It isn’t a list of what’s in stock.

What can you actually buy?

This is where WattVerdict’s own price checks come in.

We currently publish verified prices for 35 compliant kits. Across those 35, prices run from £336 to £963.04, with a middle price of £529.

Three of the new Worldwide Solar entries are already among them, at £419, £429 and £480. All three are entries that say the mounting system is not included.

That doesn’t mean only 35 of the 115 can be bought. Other compliant kits may well be on sale. We only publish a price once we’ve matched a retailer’s listing to the exact entry on the register, and we haven’t done that for the rest yet.

One sign that kits are selling: Octopus Energy said on 1 October that its first 500 plug-in solar kits went in two weeks, and that about nine in ten buyers chose the two-panel version. That’s one seller’s own figure. The register itself doesn’t record sales, so we can’t say whether the two things are connected.

What does this mean if you’re thinking of buying?

A longer list of compliant entries means more combinations that have cleared the register step they need before they can be sold. It doesn’t make choosing one any simpler, because many entries look alike.

Before you pay, check four things:

• The exact kit. Match the model name on the retailer’s page to the entry on the register. A similar name isn’t the same kit.
• The status. It should say Compliant. Here’s how to check.
• What’s in the box. Some entries include a mounting system and some don’t. That changes what you’ll really pay.
• The price today. Prices move. Check the date next to any price you see, including ours.

You can see every entry and the latest status we hold on our comparison page, and our guide to the best plug-in solar kits. If you’re still working out the rules, start with is plug-in solar legal in the UK?

How we worked this out

Data cut-off: 12:10pm UK time on Monday 5 October 2026.

• Where the data comes from. The ENA’s public register, filtered to plug-in solar. Plug-in solar became legal to buy and use in Great Britain on 27 August 2026.
• What we keep. A full copy of the plug-in solar list once a day, with the time it was taken. A copy is only saved if the number of entries we collected matches the total the register reports.
• What we compared. The copy taken at 11:43am on 1 October 2026 and the copy taken at 12:10pm on 5 October 2026.
• The sums. 115 minus 84 is 31. 31 divided by 84 is 36.9%. For all entries, 135 minus 101 is 34, and 34 divided by 101 is 33.7%.
• How entries were matched. By the exact reference number the register gives each entry. 39 reference numbers were in the later copy only. Five were in the earlier copy only. 96 were in both, and none of those changed status. 101 plus 39 minus 5 is 135.
• Compliant and non-compliant. These are the register’s own words, copied as they appear. We haven’t made our own judgement about any kit.
• Why the table starts on 28 September. Some of our earlier September copies were incomplete, so we haven’t used them to make any claim about growth.
• Prices. Collected separately from retailers’ own websites and matched to the exact register entry before we publish them. The 35 prices here are the ones on WattVerdict as of 5 October 2026. 24 were last checked on 4 October and 11 between 23 and 25 September. The middle price is the median: 17 kits cost less and 17 cost more.

What these numbers can’t tell you

• An entry is not a sale. Nothing here measures how many kits have been bought.
• The number of entries a company has is not its share of the market.
• Several entries can be versions of one kit from one supplier.
• Entries can appear, change or drop off between our daily copies, and during the day.
• A price is what we saw on the date we checked. It can change.

WattVerdict copies the register every day and tracks retailer prices, so we’ll keep reporting what changes.