How Much Do 10 Solar Panels Cost in the UK?

A panel count on its own does not describe a system. What matters is the wattage of each panel, because that is what sets the kilowatt-peak (kWp) rating everything else is calculated from.

The calculation is simply panel wattage × 10 ÷ 1,000:

400 W is the most common wattage quoted for UK residential work at the time of writing, which is why 10 panels and "a 4kW system" are usually treated as the same thing. If your quote specifies a different wattage, redo the arithmetic — a 450 W array produces about 4,365 kWh a year against 3,638 kWh for a 375 W array, a difference of around 20% for the same ten panels.

Generation figures use 970 kWh per kWp per year, the UK average for a south-facing, unshaded, roughly 35° pitched roof, derived from PVGIS regional data. Your actual figure depends on where you live, which direction your roof faces, and what shades it.

Most cost pages give a range with no basis behind it. Here is the actual basis.

DESNZ publishes solar PV cost data derived from the MCS Installation Database. For 2025/26 the median price for installations in the 0–4 kW band was £1,780.25 per kW on a Declared Net Capacity basis, across 265,682 installations.

Three things this figure is not. It is a median, so half of installations cost more and half cost less — it is not a cap and it is not a quote. It is on a Declared Net Capacity basis, which runs 6–12% higher per kW than the Total Installed Capacity basis DESNZ also publishes, so never compare the two. And it covers MCS-certified work in England, Scotland and Wales only — Northern Ireland is not in the dataset.

At 425 W and above, ten panels take you past 4 kWp and out of the 0–4 kW band entirely. DESNZ reports larger systems separately, so the £1,780.25 rate does not apply to them and we have not extrapolated it.

Our UK Solar Price Observatory carries the full 13-year series and the regional breakdown. One thing worth knowing before you read regional numbers anywhere: DESNZ reports national figures as a median and regional figures as a mean. They are different statistics and cannot be compared with each other.

Source: DESNZ, Solar photovoltaic (PV) cost data, released 28 May 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.

Savings come from two separate things, and mixing them up is the most common error on solar cost pages. Electricity you generate and use yourself avoids buying it at the price cap. Electricity you generate and export earns whatever your Smart Export Guarantee tariff pays, which is far less per unit.

Without a battery, a typical home self-consumes about half of what it generates.

With a battery, self-consumption typically rises to about 80%.

The export rate matters more than people expect. The gap between a 4.5p fixed SEG tariff and Outgoing Octopus at 12p is worth about £233 minus £87 a year on the same system — more than the difference between many quotes. Ofgem obliges larger suppliers to offer an export tariff but sets no minimum rate, so this is a market choice you make, not a fixed feature of solar.

Electricity rate: Ofgem price cap, 26.11p per kWh, Great Britain average, Direct Debit, 1 July to 30 September 2026. It changes quarterly. Use our savings calculator to run these numbers on your own consumption rather than the average.

Simple payback is the installed cost divided by the annual benefit.

The battery line uses a market estimate of £5,000 for a ~10 kWh installed battery. That number is not from the DESNZ dataset — DESNZ publishes solar PV costs, not battery costs — so treat it as indicative and replace it with your own quotes.

What these payback figures deliberately exclude: panel degradation (roughly 0.4–0.5% a year on most warranties), future electricity price movements in either direction, one inverter replacement somewhere around year 10–15, and any maintenance. Every one of those requires an assumption about the 2030s that nobody can evidence today.

That is also why you will not find a 25-year ROI figure on this page. Producing one means compounding four unknowable assumptions over 25 years and presenting the result to the nearest pound. The honest version is the payback range above, plus the statement that panels are typically warranted to still produce around 80–90% of their original output at year 25.

A typical residential panel is around 1.75 m × 1.10 m, so roughly 1.9 m² each. Ten of them is about 19 m² of panel.

Installers do not fill a roof edge to edge. Allowing for edge setbacks, access and mounting, plan on roughly 21–23 m² of unshaded roof on a single slope. Most 3-bed semi-detached and detached UK homes have this on one pitch; many terraced houses do not, and end-of-terrace often does.

The roof itself matters as much as its size:

• Orientation. South is best. East–west splits typically lose around 15–20% of annual output but spread generation across the morning and evening, which can raise self-consumption.
• Shading. A chimney, tree or neighbouring roof shading part of the array cuts output disproportionately on a string inverter. Optimisers or micro-inverters mitigate this at extra cost.
• Roof condition. Panels last 25–30 years. If the roof needs recovering within ten, do that first — removing and refitting an array later is a real cost.
• Structure and electrics. Ten panels add roughly 200 kg spread across the roof. Your installer checks the structure and whether the consumer unit needs work.

Your installer submits the DNO connection application as part of the job. Which route applies depends on your system's rated export capacity — ask your installer to confirm which one your design falls under.

Our roof suitability checker covers orientation and shading before you speak to anybody.

On the numbers above a battery raises the annual benefit from about £594–£739 to about £845–£904, but it also adds several thousand pounds to the cost. The result is more money saved in absolute terms and a longer payback in percentage terms.

A battery tends to make more sense when: you are out during the day and use most of your electricity in the evening; you can access a time-of-use import tariff and charge cheaply overnight; you have an EV or heat pump lifting your consumption; or your export tariff is poor, which makes stored units worth much more than exported ones.

It tends to make less sense when: you are at home during the day and already self-consume most of what you generate; you have a strong export tariff such as Outgoing Octopus, which narrows the gap between using a unit and selling it; or your budget is better spent on more panels first.

The order that usually works: fill the roof with panels, get the best export tariff you can, then decide on a battery once you can see a year of real generation data.

Paste a quote into our quote checker to see how its price per kW compares with the published DESNZ distribution, or get quotes if you are starting from scratch.

Every number on this page is calculated from a stated source. Nothing is a market rumour or a rounded guess.

Where these numbers stop being reliable. The DESNZ figure is a national median of MCS-certified work in England, Scotland and Wales; it does not describe your street, your installer, or Northern Ireland. The yield figure is a UK average and shifts by roughly ±15% by region before you account for orientation and shading. The electricity rate changes every quarter, and everything derived from it changes with it. Self-consumption of 50% without a battery and 80% with one are widely used planning assumptions, not measurements of your household — yours will differ, and that single input moves the savings figure more than anything else on this page.

We publish our full workings at how we calculate solar savings. Assumptions on this page were verified on 8 August 2026 and are next due for review when Ofgem sets the October cap.