Plug-in solar panels will not need planning permission

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After much publicity in the press, plug-in solar panels are about to become permitted development. This takes place from 27th August 2026.

This will allow UK residents to visit Aldi, Lidl, Tesco etc., to purchase these new solar panels. Other supermarkets also exist… This page on Amazon will soon have options for balconies and other solar plug-in options for the UK.

But there are a few important items, which this news item will detail.

In short, from that date you will be able to buy a panel, hang it on a balcony or stand it in the garden, plug it into an ordinary socket and start using it, all without asking the council first. There are conditions though, and one of them is going to catch people out.

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So what is plug-in solar?

It is a solar panel you put up yourself. No roofer, no scaffolding, no electrician wiring it into your fuse box.

It comes with an ordinary three-pin plug. You hang the panel on a balcony rail or stand it in the garden, plug it into a normal socket, and the electricity it makes gets used by whatever happens to be switched on in your home at the time. The kettle, the fridge, the telly.

They have been popular in Germany for years, where people hang them over balcony railings. That is where the nickname balcony solar comes from. Until now, the planning rules in England did not mention them at all.

The catch: nothing wooden

This is the one that will trip people up, so we will get it out of the way early.

You cannot fix a plug-in solar panel to anything wooden. Not a timber balcony. Not a garden fence. Not a wooden gate. And not a wall on a building clad in timber.

The government has not explained why, but you can probably guess. Do it anyway and you are back to needing planning permission.

Metal railings and brick walls are fine.

If you live in a flat

This is the change that matters most to people in flats. Until now, if you did not own the roof there was not much you could do. From 27th August a panel on your balcony is allowed without planning permission.

There are four situations where it is still a no:

your balcony or the wall is wooden, or the building is clad in timber
your block is a listed building
you are in a conservation area or World Heritage Site and the wall faces the road
the building is a scheduled monument

One thing worth flagging. The new rules spell out exactly how far a plug-in solar panel may stick out from a balcony, but only for houses. Flats did not get those words. So flats have the plug-in solar right and the timber ban, without the balcony measurements that go with it. We think that is an oversight rather than a deliberate choice, and we will keep an eye on it.

If you live in a house

Houses do a bit better out of this.

Panels on a wall can now stick out up to 0.4 metres, double the old limit, as long as the wall does not run along a road. If it does, the old 0.2 metres still applies.

Balconies and roof rails are dealt with properly for the first time, with the same 0.2 and 0.4 metre limits. That settles an old argument about whether a balcony rail counted as part of the roof.

Roofs are unchanged. Panels can sit 0.2 metres above a sloping roof and must not poke above the ridge. On a flat roof, 0.6 metres.

One thing gets stricter. Solar panels on a listed house are now clearly outside the rules altogether. In practice that was already the position for most people, because you need listed building consent as well, but the wording has been tightened.

Panels in the garden get a lot easier

If you fancy a frame of panels on the lawn rather than on the house, this is the biggest change in the whole package.

At the moment you simply cannot put them within 5 metres of your boundary. That rules out most ordinary gardens.

From 27th August you can, but the closer to the boundary you go, the lower they have to be:

within 5 metres of the boundary and in front of the house, 1 metre tall
within 5 metres of the boundary anywhere else, 2 metres
in a conservation area and closer to the road than your house is, 2 metres
anywhere else in the garden, 4 metres

The panels themselves must not add up to more than 9 square metres, which is roughly the size of a small bedroom floor.

World Heritage Sites are the exception. There you still cannot go within 5 metres of the boundary, or nearer the road than the house.

When you still have to ask the council

Garden panels come with a new catch. If you live in a conservation area, National Park, National Landscape, the Broads or a World Heritage Site, and you want panels within 5 metres of your boundary, you have to ask the council first.

This is called prior approval. It is not a full planning application, and the council is only looking at how the panels will look. But it takes time and there is a fee to pay. Our planning fees page has the current figure.

The same applies if you are in a conservation area and the panels would sit closer to the road than your house does.

Planning is not the only permission you need

This is important, and it is where we would urge some caution.

All the government has done is remove the need for planning permission. It has said nothing about whether a plug-in solar panel is safe to plug in, whether it meets the wiring regulations, or whether your electricity network operator wants to know about it. Those are separate questions with separate rules, and we would suggest checking them before you buy.

If you live in a flat, there is another one. Your lease or your freeholder may simply not allow you to fix anything to the outside of the building. Planning permission and your landlord’s permission are two completely different things, and the government has only dealt with the first.

What if the council says no?

If you have to apply for prior approval and it is refused, you can appeal. Our guide to planning appeals explains how.

If you are somewhere sensitive and you want to be certain before you spend any money, a certificate of lawfulness is worth considering. It is the council confirming in writing that what you are planning is allowed. Sensible if you are in a conservation area, close to a boundary, or unsure whether your balcony counts as wooden.

Already started something? You have a year

A handful of things that are allowed today will not be allowed from 27th August. If that catches something you have already started, you have until 26th August 2027 to finish it.

After that date, it needs planning permission like anything else.