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Money · 7 min read

What Plug-In Solar Costs, and What It Saves

A simple, honest way to work out what an 800 W plug-in kit could earn you.

The short answer

We can't state a real retail price, because compliant kit prices aren't verified yet. An 800 W kit can make about 720 kWh a year if it's well angled. That's worth about £188 a year at the current Ofgem cap price of 26.11p per kWh.

Plug-in solar kits are new enough that UK retail prices aren't settled yet. So instead of guessing a number, here's the method you can use on any kit you find. It also has real numbers for the savings side.

How much power can an 800 W kit make?

ByMySun's own figures put a well-sited UK solar array at about 900 kWh per kWp each year. An 800 W kit is 0.8 kWp, so at that rate it makes about 720 kWh a year. That's the ceiling for a kit angled well, like a roof-mounted panel.

Why leaning it on a wall makes less

A panel angled toward the sun catches far more light than one leaning flat against a balcony rail or wall. That's how a roof panel is normally angled. The 720 kWh a year figure assumes good, roof-like angling. A propped-up balcony panel will make less than that, so treat 720 kWh as a best case, not a guarantee.

What is that power worth on your bill?

Because an 800 W kit is small, it mostly covers power your house is already drawing. That includes things like the fridge and standby devices. So you use nearly all of it yourself rather than exporting it. At the Ofgem cap import price of 26.11p per kWh, 720 kWh a year works out to about £188. That's an estimate built on the assumptions above, not a promise.

A worked example, step by step

Here's the maths in one place, clearly labelled as an example, not a real quote. Say a compliant kit costs around £600, just to have a number to work with. At an estimated £188 a year in savings, that's a payback of a little over three years. That's before you even count the 0% VAT relief on qualifying kits, which runs until 31 March 2027. Swap in the real price you're quoted and redo the sum.

Sunny says
Sunny says: run this same maths on any kit before you buy it. Use its real rated watts, not the box's biggest number. Check whether the price you're quoted already has 0% VAT taken off.

The quick version

Common questions

How much does plug-in solar cost in the UK?

We haven't verified real UK retail prices for compliant plug-in kits, so we can't quote a number as fact. What we can say is that qualifying kits get 0% VAT until 31 March 2027. That lowers whatever price you're quoted. Compare a few current listings and use our worked example to check the savings side yourself.

How much can an 800 W plug-in solar panel save?

A well-angled 800 W kit can make about 720 kWh a year. That's based on a UK average of about 900 kWh per kWp. At the Ofgem cap import price of 26.11p per kWh, that's worth about £188 a year. A panel leaning on a wall or balcony, rather than angled like a roof, will make less.

Does it matter if I lean the panel on a wall instead of angling it?

Yes. A panel tilted toward the sun catches more light than one propped flat against a balcony rail or wall. That's the way roof panels are angled. The 720 kWh a year estimate assumes good angling, so a leaned panel should be expected to make less.

Is plug-in solar VAT-free in the UK?

Qualifying residential solar, plug-in kits included, gets 0% VAT. That relief is due to end on 31 March 2027. After that, the rate reverts to the reduced 5% rate, not the full 20% rate.

How is the 720 kWh a year savings figure worked out?

An 800 W kit is 0.8 kWp. Multiply that by the UK average of about 900 kWh per kWp a year. You get about 720 kWh a year for a well-sited, well-angled kit. It's a planning estimate, not a guarantee for every roof or balcony.

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