The July 2026 government response is a green light. This is exactly what it decided, the instruments that do the work, the final rules in the product spec, and the honest answer to the only question that matters: can you plug one in yet.
On 2026-07-17, buyers finally have an answer that is more than a promise. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has published its Government Response to the plug-in solar consultation, and it is a green light. After 466 responses across 17 questions, with 85 percent backing the product specification and 78 percent backing the timeline, the government intends to proceed. That is the headline. The detail matters more, and one part of it corrects something almost everyone, this site included, had been saying.
The government will proceed. It will amend the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994 and the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002, and amend Engineering Recommendation G98, to allow plug-in solar to connect through a standard BS 1363 plug.
The instrument is an Interim Product Specification, not a BSI standard. The final IPS is version 2.0, published 16 July 2026, and is explicitly transitional, pending a future revision of BS 1363. A separate BSI plug-in solar product standard was never published, and that route was abandoned.
It is now in force. At the time of writing the Statutory Instrument had still to be laid. It was made on 16 July 2026, laid on 17 July, and SI 2026 No. 848 came into force on 27 August 2026. Ofgem approved the matching G98 change on 11 August 2026, effective the same day. Plug-in solar is legal, and a kit listed as Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register goes into an ordinary 13A socket and is self-notified afterwards.
The most important correction is a plumbing one. The change is not delivered by a shiny new British Standard. It is delivered by amending existing law. BS 1363, the standard behind the UK 13A plug, currently prohibits using a plug to connect an electricity-generating device to a socket. Rather than rewrite BS 1363 now, which respondents said could take years, the government is amending the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994 to create a narrow route to approve a BS 1363 plug for use with a plug-in solar microgenerator. Alongside it, the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002 are amended, and Engineering Recommendation G98, the network notification rule, is updated by the ENA G98 working group.
The Interim Product Specification sits underneath those amendments and sets the safety conditions the plug, and the device it is sold with, must meet. So when people ask "where is the BSI plug-in solar standard", the honest answer is that the enabling document is the DESNZ IPS, a government specification, working with the amended regulations and G98. A full BS 1363 revision may follow later. The IPS is the bridge.
Version 2.0 of the specification is precise, and the numbers are worth committing to memory because kit marketing will blur them.
This is the line the storage crowd will not like. The specification "applies to only plug-in solar device". It explicitly does not cover plug-in battery systems, plug-in solar integrated with batteries, building-integrated PV, or PV systems installed to BS 7671 Section 712. The government acknowledged strong interest in battery-integrated products and deliberately kept them out to avoid widening a narrow, safety-led route. So the popular "solar plus a plug-in battery in one box" idea is not part of this. Storage remains a separate, later conversation.
The government did not just rubber-stamp the June draft. The response says the final IPS was strengthened on the points respondents pushed on: clearer product scope, clearer installation and circuit-identification guidance, mounting requirements, G98 notification, prohibited uses, and the new 960 W professional-advice threshold that was not spelled out before. The direction is unchanged, the guard-rails are tighter. A clause-by-clause diff would need the original June draft specification, which was not part of this release.
The final-stage impact assessment, dated 16 July 2026, frames the case in pounds. Plug-in solar kits sell for around £400 to £600 for an 800W system in Europe, roughly £500 to £750 per kW, against a median £1,595 per kW for small-scale rooftop solar in Great Britain in 2025/26. In other words, it is the low-entry-cost route into solar for people without a suitable roof or a spare few thousand pounds. The department puts the equivalised annual household benefit at about £24.3 million, in a wide range from £11.1 million to £47.5 million, over a fifteen-year appraisal. Ranges that wide tell you the honest truth: nobody knows yet how fast Britain adopts this, which is exactly why Germany, with over 1.3 million registered kits, keeps getting cited.
When this piece was published in July, the legal switch had still to be laid and no product had been approved. Both of those have since happened. SI 2026 No. 848 came into force on 27 August 2026, Ofgem approved the G98 change on 11 August 2026 with effect from the same date, and one hundred and twenty-three kits from twenty-seven manufacturers are now listed as Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register. Plug-in solar is a lawful, self-install option today.
The July 2026 response commits the government to proceed, and the final Interim Product Specification, version 2.0, is out.
The legal switch amended the PSSR 1994, the ESQCR 2002 and G98. SI 2026 No. 848 was made on 16 July 2026, laid on 17 July, and came into force on 27 August 2026. Ofgem approved the G98 change on 11 August 2026, effective the same day.
Update, 15 September 2026: 123 kits from 27 manufacturers are listed as Compliant, 20 are on sale, and the cheapest is £336. See the live register tracker.
So the practical picture for a buyer has changed completely since this piece was written. If you want panels feeding your home, buy a kit that shows as Compliant on the ENA G98 Type Test Register, plug it into an ordinary 13A socket, and notify your network operator afterwards. No electrician is involved. A CPS-registered electrician and a hardwired connection are needed only if the kit you want is not on the register, which is the case for most imported kits.
Both of the things that decided the real start date have happened: the SI is in force, and products are approved and listed on the ENA G98 Type Test Register. I keep the register tracker current on this site. If you are a renter or flat-dweller who has been waiting, the advice that has not changed is the sun: work out whether your spot even gets enough of it to make the spend worthwhile. Run your postcode through the savings calculator, check your balcony with the shadow simulator, and read the regulation page so you can tell a register-listed kit from a hopeful import. The decision is made, the kit is on sale, and the one check that matters at the till is whether the exact model shows as Compliant on the register.
Get your own numbers straight so you buy a register-listed kit, not a hopeful import.