Market
Record 269,000 solar installs in 2025: how to read the 'up to £480 a year' claim
A DESNZ press release published on 16 June 2026, about retailers joining plans for plug-in solar, also set out two figures about ordinary rooftop solar. It says rooftop solar panels are already saving families up to £480 a year. And it says 2025 saw a record 269,000 solar installations in the UK, the highest total in a calendar year and 37% larger than the year before, with around 255,000 of them rooftop, which it equates to a new rooftop installation every two minutes through 2025.
The first figure needs care. The release does not say what size of system, what electricity price or what share of power used at home sits behind £480, and 'up to' is a ceiling in wording even when it reads like an average. We cannot check it from that page alone.
Our own model, which is ours and not the Government's, puts a 4 kWp system for a home using 3,000 kWh a year at about £610 a year, within a range of £490 to £735, using the Ofgem price cap of 26.32p per kWh and a 12p export rate. The Energy Saving Trust gives an average system cost of about £7,600 and paybacks of 9 years in London and 10 to 11 in Manchester. Dividing £7,600 by those paybacks implies roughly £690 to £840 a year (our arithmetic, and the Trust's own assumptions are not visible to us). So the Government's £480 sits below both of our figures.
What should a Broadstairs homeowner take from that? Treat any single saving figure as a starting point. A narrow terrace roof with shade will save less than a clear south-facing slope, and a home that is out all day will use less of its own power. Our costs page shows several set-ups side by side, and the estimator lets you use your own bill.
The record installation figure is the more solid number, because it counts completed work. It tells you the market is busy. It does not tell you what any one system pays back, and it says nothing about batteries, which have the longer payback.
Read the original: GOV.UK: More families to benefit from lower bills through plug-in panels. Figures come from that page. Where we do our own sums we say so. Commentary is our own view, not advice.
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