BSI 2026 Plug-In Solar Tracker: the standard that never came, and what legalised plug-in solar instead

At a glance: standards status

1. BS 1363-1:2023, UK 13A plugs and sockets

BS 1363 is the standard that defines the familiar UK 3-pin 13A plug and socket. The current edition is BS 1363-1:2023, and it governs the design, safety and testing of plugs, sockets and adaptors used in the UK.

For plug-in solar specifically, the exception is in law, not in either standard: SI 2026 No. 848 amended the Plugs and Sockets Regulations 1994 from 27 August 2026 so that a kit meeting the DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0 may connect via a standard plug. For all other uses, BS 1363 continues to treat sockets as power outlets, not as inlets for externally generated power.

2. BS 7671:2018+A4:2026, the IET Wiring Regulations

BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 (the 18th Edition Amendment 4) was published on 15 April 2026 by the IET. It governs electrical installations in the UK, the wiring inside your walls, the protective devices in your consumer unit, and the rules an electrician follows when adding circuits.

Amendment 4 updates a range of rules across the wiring regulations, including a new chapter on stationary batteries, and became mandatory on 15 October 2026.

Correction, 18 October 2026. Earlier versions of this page said Section 712 was updated so that a kit meeting the DESNZ Interim Product Specification could connect via a standard plug without a dedicated spur. We cannot support that from the IET's published material on Amendment 4, which does not describe a plug-in solar provision, and the specification it was said to reference was published three months after A4. On the IET's Engx forum, electricians read Regulation 551.7.2 as still pointing a generating set at a dedicated circuit.

What this means in practice: the plug-in connection is lawful because of SI 2026 No. 848, for one defined class of equipment and only that class. The route became usable on 27 August 2026, when SI 2026 No. 848 and the amended G98 took effect. The Interim Product Specification is final at v2.0, published 16 July 2026. The first four compliant kits, all UKSOL, were listed on the ENA G98 register on 18 and 19 August 2026, and the register now holds 123 kits from 27 manufacturers.

3. The DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0, and the BSI standard that never came

This section used to be headed "the BSI plug-in solar product standard" and it used to say BSI had indicated July 2026 for publication. That standard was abandoned and never published. The document that actually carries the product requirements is the DESNZ Interim Product Specification, published as v2.0 on 16 July 2026. It sets out what a compliant plug-in solar product must do at the level of the kit itself, things like inverter behaviour, anti-islanding, connector type, labelling and safety testing.

What v2.0 sets:

• A cap of 800 VA output and 3.5 A, which is the number that matters at the socket.
• One device per household. You cannot stack two kits to reach 1600 VA.
• PV DC capacity up to 2000W, so the panels may be considerably larger than the inverter output.
• Batteries are explicitly out of scope. A kit with storage attached does not fall inside the specification, and storage is not covered by the plug-in route.

What it did not do on its own:

• The specification is technical, not legal. The legal change was SI 2026 No. 848, made 16 July 2026 and in force 27 August 2026.
• BS 1363 still governs sockets for general use. The exception for plug-in solar lives in the amended Plugs and Sockets Regulations (SI 2026 No. 848), not in BS 1363 or BS 7671.
• G98 still applies on the network side. Ofgem approved the plug-in solar change to G98 on 11 August 2026, effective 27 August, which is what allows self-notification after the event rather than approval before it.

4. So what is compliant in the UK today?

There are two routes, and which one you are on depends on a single question: is the kit listed as Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register?

Route one, a kit on the register. No electrician.

one hundred and twenty-three kits from twenty-seven manufacturers show Compliant on the register, 20 of them are on sale in the UK, and the cheapest is £336. For any of those:

1. Check the specific model code against the register. A brand being listed does not mean every model that brand sells is listed.
2. Plug it into an ordinary 13A socket on a sound, RCD-protected circuit. No dedicated spur, no MCS-certified installer, no electrician.
3. Self-notify under G98 to your DNO afterwards. The Ofgem-approved change of 11 August 2026 is what allows notification after the event rather than approval before it.
4. One device per household, 800 VA and 3.5 A maximum.

Route two, a kit not on the register. Electrician required.

If the kit does not appear on the register, the plug-in route is not open to it and the compliant install is the hardwired one:

1. Engage a CPS-registered electrician (Competent Person Scheme: NICEIC, NAPIT, ELECSA, Stroma) to install a hardwired connection from the microinverter to a dedicated circuit on the consumer unit.
2. The electrician issues a Minor Works Certificate or EIC under BS 7671:2018+A4:2026.
3. The installer or the householder submits a G98 notification to the local DNO before energising. G98 covers single-phase installations up to 16A per phase.

The hardwired route is also a reasonable choice for a listed kit where the household wants a fixed isolator and labelling at the consumer unit, but for a listed kit it is a preference, not a requirement.

5. Timeline of dated milestones

• 2023 BS 1363-1:2023 published

  Latest edition of the UK 13A plug, socket and adaptor standard. Continues to govern sockets for general use.

• May 2024 Germany passes Solarpaket I

  Germany lifts plug-in solar feed-in limit to 800W and authorises Schuko-plug connection. The UK reaches the same destination via a different chain in 2026.

• 2025 BSI announces work on plug-in solar product standard

  BSI begins the work programme for a UK product specification covering plug-in solar equipment. This page was built around that work. The standard was never published.

• 15 March 2026 DESNZ written ministerial statement

  The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero issues a written ministerial statement confirming legalisation of plug-in solar in the UK.

• 24 March 2026 Public announcement on gov.uk

  UK Government publishes the formal commitment: "The government will work with the Energy Networks Association, DNOs and Ofgem to update the G98 distribution code and wiring regulations BS 7671 to allow UK households to connect <800W plug-in solar panels to domestic mains sockets, without the need for an electrician and with tailored safety standards." See gov.uk press release.

• 15 April 2026 BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 published

  IET and BSI officially publish Amendment 4, with a six-month transition ending 15 October 2026. Its published material does not describe a plug-in solar provision.

• 21 April 2026 Up to £25m earmarked for a low-income pilot

  The government says it has earmarked up to £25 million, through the Warm Homes Plan, to pilot support for plug-in panels with local authorities and mayors (gov.uk, 21 April 2026).

• 9 June 2026 Industry joint safety statement

  ECA, Electrical Safety First, the IET, NICEIC and SELECT issue a joint statement urging the Government to put product standards, enforcement, safe install routes, network notification and consumer guidance in place before plug-in solar is sold to consumers. Not a ban; a call to sequence the safety framework ahead of sale.

• 16 June 2026 DESNZ consultation opens

  DESNZ consults on amending the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994 and introducing an Interim Product Specification modelled on Germany's DIN VDE V 0126-95, with G98 and ESQCR changes alongside. It closed on 30 June 2026. The consultation explained.

• 2026 The BSI plug-in solar standard is abandoned

  The standalone BSI product standard this tracker was built to follow was never published and the work did not produce a document. It was not the mechanism that legalised plug-in solar. This site expected it to be, and said so for over a year. That expectation was wrong.

• 16 July 2026 Interim Product Specification v2.0 published and SI 2026 No. 848 made

  DESNZ publishes the Interim Product Specification at v2.0: 800 VA and 3.5 A cap, one device per household, PV DC capacity up to 2000W, batteries explicitly out of scope. SI 2026 No. 848 is made the same day, to come into force on 27 August 2026.

• 11 August 2026 Ofgem approves the G98 change

  Ofgem approves DCRP/MP/26/02, the network-side rule for plug-in solar, effective 27 August 2026 alongside the legislation. This is what allows a householder to self-notify after installing rather than seek approval first. The G98 decision in detail.

• 18 and 19 August 2026 First kits appear on the ENA G98 Type Test Register

  The first four kits, all UKSOL, are listed as Compliant, nine days before the law changes.

• 27 August 2026 Plug-in solar became legal in the UK

  SI 2026 No. 848 comes into force, with the amended G98 alongside it. A kit showing Compliant on the register can be plugged into an ordinary 13A socket and self-notified afterwards, with no electrician. What changed on the day.

• 15 September 2026 Register at 123 kits

  one hundred and twenty-three kits from twenty-seven manufacturers show Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register. 20 are on sale in the UK and the cheapest is £336.

6. The certification route, now finished

For most of 2025 and early 2026, the question on this page was speculative: could the UK reach a plug-in route through product certification rather than rewriting BS 1363 from scratch? That question has been answered, and the answer is yes.

The concern this route has to answer: a live plug during backfeed

The single biggest safety objection to plug-in solar via a socket has always been simple to state: if the kit is generating and someone pulls the plug, could the exposed pins be live and electrocute them? Any credible DIY route has to close that question completely. The trade view is that modern inverter electronics already can, and that a product standard is the right place to make that behaviour mandatory rather than optional.

eFIXX: We Tested Plug-In Solar. The Industry Got This Wrong. The safety bench tests start around the 5-minute mark.

What the video sharpens for this tracker. eFIXX measures the inverter shutdown at just over half a cycle of AC waveform, around 10 milliseconds, well inside G98's 0.5-second loss-of-mains envelope. They demonstrate that an older non-bidirectional RCBO still operates correctly under backfeed, which addresses the wiring-side concern raised against allowing generation through legacy protective devices. They also note the gap that the safety bodies have left unfilled, citing an 18-month investigation by Electrical Safety First with no published findings. The tracker view, with hindsight: the practical safety questions were largely answered by existing standards, and the variable that actually decided when the route became usable was the legislation, not a BSI publication date.

A product type-tested for this purpose has to demonstrate, as hard requirements:

• Rapid shutdown and automatic disconnect: the inverter de-energises its output within a fraction of a second if the connection is broken or the supply is abnormal.
• Anti-islanding: the inverter stops generating the instant the grid supply is lost, so it can never backfeed a dead network or an isolated circuit.
• No exposed live pins: the pins cannot be live once the plug is even slightly withdrawn, because the inverter senses the disconnection and shuts down first.
• Export limits and compliant voltage and frequency behaviour: the kit stays inside the envelope the grid expects and cannot push the local network out of tolerance.
• Safe operation on ring final circuits: the product is tested and rated for the real circuits found in UK homes.

If a product genuinely satisfies all of that, the live-pin scenario stops being a live risk. That is the engineering case behind the trade optimism, and it is the case the Interim Product Specification ended up codifying.

What the DIY route still requires

DIY does not mean no rules. The conditions the trade expected are close to the ones that landed:

• An output cap of 800 VA and 3.5 A, and one device per household.
• Type-tested equipment only, listed as Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register.
• A sound socket and circuit, with RCD protection on the circuit the kit connects to.
• G98 notification to the DNO, now a self-notification made after installation.
• No adaptors or extension-lead chains.
• Batteries out of scope. Storage is not covered by the specification or by the plug-in route.

So the real version of DIY plug-in solar is "buy a listed kit, connect it to a known-good socket, notify the DNO, follow the rules on the label" rather than "plug anything into anything".

The honest summary: the Government confirmation (DESNZ 15 March 2026), the current wiring standard (BS 7671 A4, published 15 April 2026, which does not itself authorise the plug-in connection), the product specification (DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0, 16 July 2026), the network rule (Ofgem G98 approval, 11 August 2026) and the law itself (SI 2026 No. 848, in force 27 August 2026) are all in place. The BSI standard that this page treated as the keystone never appeared and was not needed. The page is now a record of what happened and a watch on the register.

7. What I will and will not say about timing

The page has shifted position with the regulatory moves, and more than once it shifted late. The one thing I will keep saying is that "plug-in solar is legal now" needs the register caveat attached: only the specific kits listed as Compliant on the ENA G98 register can use the plug-in route, one hundred and twenty-three kits from twenty-seven manufacturers are listed today, and you should check the model code rather than assume a brand qualifies.

If you are writing a piece on plug-in solar and want phrasings that will hold up, you can borrow any of these:

• "Plug-in solar became legal in the UK on 27 August 2026, when SI 2026 No. 848 came into force."
• "The BSI plug-in solar product standard was abandoned and never published. It was not the mechanism that legalised plug-in solar."
• "The DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0, published 16 July 2026, sets the product requirements: 800 VA and 3.5 A, one device per household, PV DC capacity up to 2000W, and batteries explicitly out of scope."
• "Ofgem approved the G98 change on 11 August 2026, effective 27 August 2026, which is what allows a householder to self-notify after installing."
• "A kit showing Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register is plugged into an ordinary 13A socket and self-notified under G98 afterwards. A CPS-registered electrician and a hardwired connection are needed only for kits that are not on the register."
• "BS 7671 Amendment 4, published 15 April 2026 and mandatory from 15 October 2026, does not itself authorise a plug-in connection."

8. Primary sources

• IET press release, 15 April 2026: Amendment 4:2026 officially published
• IET Wiring Matters: The impact of Amendment 4:2026 on the 18th Edition
• EAL: BS 7671 Amendment 4 (2026) key changes explained
• NICEIC: Understanding BS 7671:2018 + Amendment 4:2026
• BSI: BS 1363-1:2023, specification for 13A plugs, socket-outlets and adaptors
• IET: BS 7671 Wiring Regulations (18th Edition) Amendment 4:2026 product page
• BSI: standards programme and announcements. The plug-in solar product standard does not appear as a published document, and the work was abandoned
• Energy Networks Association: ENA EREC G98 (small generator connection) and the Type Test Register
• UK Government press release, 24 March 2026: "Government to make plug-in solar available within months"
• ITV News, 24 March 2026: Government to make plug-in solar available within months (DESNZ ministerial statement coverage)
• UK Government press releases (search archive)

If a source above moves or is updated, this page will be updated within 7 days. Corrections and challenges are welcome at [email protected].

9. Frequently asked questions

• Did the BSI 2026 plug-in solar standard make it legal to plug a solar kit into a UK 13A wall socket?
  No. The BSI plug-in solar product standard was abandoned and never published, so it legalised nothing. The legal change came from SI 2026 No. 848, made on 16 July 2026 and in force from 27 August 2026, working with the DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0 of 16 July 2026 and the Ofgem-approved G98 change of 11 August 2026. BS 7671 Amendment 4, published 15 April 2026 and mandatory from 15 October 2026, does not itself authorise a plug-in connection. A kit showing Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register goes into an ordinary 13A socket and is self-notified under G98 afterwards, with no electrician involved.
• What did BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 actually change?
  Amendment 4 to BS 7671:2018 was published on 15 April 2026 by the IET and BSI. It is the current edition of the IET Wiring Regulations and became mandatory on 15 October 2026, adding a new chapter on stationary batteries among other changes. The IET's published material on it does not describe a plug-in solar provision: the plug-in route comes from SI 2026 No. 848 and the DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0, which caps a device at 800 VA and 3.5 A, one device per household, with PV DC capacity up to 2000W.
• Is plug-in solar legal in the UK in 2026?
  Yes. Plug-in solar became legal in the UK on 27 August 2026, the day SI 2026 No. 848 came into force. Ofgem approved the matching G98 change on 11 August 2026, effective the same day. one hundred and twenty-three kits from twenty-seven manufacturers are listed as Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register, 20 of them are on sale, and the cheapest is £336. A listed kit is plugged into an ordinary socket and self-notified under G98 afterwards.
• What happened to the BSI plug-in solar standard?
  It was abandoned and never published. BSI began work on a UK plug-in solar product standard in 2025, and this site expected publication in July 2026 to be the trigger that made the route usable. That expectation was wrong. The DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0, published 16 July 2026, took the technical role instead, and SI 2026 No. 848 did the legal work.
• What is the compliant install route for plug-in solar in the UK today?
  For a kit showing Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register, the route is to plug it into an ordinary 13A socket on a sound, RCD-protected circuit and self-notify under G98 afterwards. No electrician is needed. A CPS-registered (Competent Person Scheme) electrician and a hardwired connection from the microinverter to a dedicated circuit on the consumer unit are needed only for a kit that is not on the register, and in that case the G98 notification goes in before energising. one hundred and twenty-three kits from twenty-seven manufacturers are listed, 20 are on sale, and the cheapest is £336. Check the model code, not just the brand.
• Is the UK following Germany's Solarpaket I model?
  Yes, broadly. Germany's Solarpaket I (May 2024) authorised the Schuko plug for plug-in solar via primary legislation. The UK reached the same end point through a different document chain: DESNZ ministerial statement (15 March 2026), BS 7671 Amendment 4 (published 15 April 2026), the DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0 (16 July 2026), the Ofgem G98 approval (11 August 2026) and SI 2026 No. 848 in force on 27 August 2026. The UK approach defines a type-tested product route at the equipment level rather than declaring sockets bidirectional in primary law, but the practical outcome for buyers is the same. A standalone BSI product standard was expected to be part of that chain and never arrived.
• Where can I track changes to this page?
  The "Last reviewed" date in the author box and the "Updated" badge in the header reflect the most recent fact check. Substantive corrections are logged on the site changelog. If you are a journalist or electrician and want to be notified when this page changes, email me at [email protected].

Related reading: From Schuko to BSI: Germany's path and the UK route ahead · BS 7671 and Plug-In Solar in the UK · Complete UK Guide to Plug-In Solar · G98 / DNO Notification Guide · Renter Guide · FAQ