The roof you already own, quietly paying you back for the next 25 years.
Solar isn't a moonshot anymore. On a south-facing UK roof with a sensible inverter and an honest installer, panels pay for themselves in 7-10 years and keep generating for another 15. The trick is sizing the system to how you actually use electricity.
The hardest part of buying solar isn't the panels; it's deciding whether to add a battery, how big, and which tariff to pair it with. Get those decisions right and you're running on cheap overnight electricity for most of the year. Get them wrong and you've spent £8,000 to save £200 a year.
What we cover
Solar panel cost UK
Real installed prices for 3kW to 8kW systems in 2026, by roof type.
Solar payback explained
How to calculate honest payback with your actual usage and tariff.
Solar + battery sizing
When a battery makes the maths work; and when it doesn't.
Solar tariffs compared
Octopus Flux, Intelligent Octopus, SEG export rates and what they really pay.
Specific panels, with a verdict.
LongiHi-MO X6 440WLongi's Hi-MO X6 is the panel most British solar installers quote first. The efficiency-to-price ratio is hard to argue with, the supply chain is reassuringly boring, and the panel has now accumulated enough field data in UK homes to be the genuine sensible default.
£170 to £220 per panel installedRead
RECAlpha Pure-RX 470WREC's Alpha Pure is the panel UK installers reach for when the roof is part of the architecture. Clean all-black aesthetic, strong measured performance in British light, and a long product warranty that puts it in genuine competition with SunPower at a meaningfully lower price.
£280 to £340 per panel installedRead
SunPower (Maxeon)Maxeon 6 AC 440WThe Maxeon 6 is the most efficient mainstream domestic solar panel on the UK market and carries the longest performance warranty in the segment. The right answer when the available roof area is the limiting factor, not the budget, and the homeowner intends to keep the system running long after the install team has moved on.
£340 to £420 per panel installedRead
JA SolarDeepBlue 4.0 420WJA Solar's DeepBlue is the panel installers quietly recommend when budget is the deciding factor and the roof is not visually sensitive. The price-to-spec story is sensible, UK distributor support is reliable, and the measured output puts it within a few percent of the Longi flagship at a lower price per kWp.
£155 to £200 per panel installedRead
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