no roof. still solar.

Since 27 August 2026, yes — in Great Britain, if the kit is a compliant plug-in microgenerator: solar only, 800 W or less of AC output, no storage, and meeting the government’s Interim Product Specification version 2. We still hard-wire the systems we install, because it means no lead through a door and it produces an electrical certificate — the document your landlord or factor will ask for. That is a choice now, not a legal requirement, and we price it as one.

Mostly VAT, and it is the part people miss. A fitted system is zero-rated until 31 March 2027; a kit you buy and fit yourself is standard-rated at 20%. Our kit line is £929.52 before VAT, so buying the hardware yourself costs about £1,115 once VAT is on it — against £1,380 fitted. Everything the visit includes, from the railing wind-load assessment to the certificate and the G98 filing, comes to about £264. If you are confident about your railing and do not need a certificate, buying a compliant kit and plugging it in is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and we would rather say so.

With the landlord’s written consent, yes — and they say yes more often than tenants expect, because the answers to their three real questions are good: nothing is drilled that cannot be made good, the electrical work is certified, and the whole system leaves with you at the end of the tenancy. We put those in writing for you to forward.

Probably, yes. A balcony is very often common property with an exclusive right of use, which means the structure is not yours to alter alone. Ask the factor before you order anything — it is the longest lead time in the project, and it is a five-minute email.

A south-facing 800 W system in central Scotland generates about 530 kWh a year. What it saves you is less than that sounds, because with no battery you only bank the units you happen to be using at the moment they are produced — on the MCS self-consumption tables that is roughly half to three-quarters of them. For a household on an average bill that works out at about £90 a year, and £1,380 fitted means a payback in the mid-teens of years. On a very low bill it may not pay back inside the panels’ warranted life at all. The estimator will tell you which of those you are, and we would rather it did that than a salesperson didn’t.

No, and nobody selling you balcony solar should say otherwise. The Smart Export Guarantee needs an MCS or Flexi-Orb certified installation and a balcony system is neither. Surplus goes to the grid for nothing — and on a typical flat that surplus is a quarter to a third of everything the panels make. It is the single biggest thing standing between the generation figure and the saving figure, which is why the estimator shows it as its own line rather than burying it.

No. A grid-tied microinverter is required to shut down the moment it stops seeing the grid, so that a panel on your balcony cannot electrify a cable somebody is working on. Backup power needs a battery and a changeover switch — a different product at a different price.

Better than you would guess. A vertical panel is aimed at a low sun, and Scotland has one — on the MCS tables a south-facing vertical array around Edinburgh collects about 670 kWh per kWp against about 695 in London. The gap that hurts roof solar up here barely applies. Winter is the vertical array’s relatively good season, and snow slides off instead of settling.

It comes with you, because you own it — the brackets unbolt and the whole thing fits in a car. Moving it is at your cost rather than ours, but you are paying for a visit, not for the system: you already own the hardware, so a refit is the install line plus a fresh certificate and notification. Against a roof array, which you leave behind and buy again from scratch, that is the whole argument for balcony solar if you move every couple of years.