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How many homes have solar panels in the UK?
Here's how many homes have solar panels in the UK, which areas have the most, and how the UK compares with Europe.
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At a glance
🏡 1.4 million homes now have solar panels in the UK
More than 1.4 million households in the UK have solar panels, according to the latest government data.
That means 4.9% of the UK’s 28.4 million households have gone solar.
As recently as December 2020, fewer than a million UK homes had solar panels – which shows how far we've come in relatively little time.
📅 More solar panel systems were installed in 2023 than any year since 2015
Installation numbers have climbed rapidly since the start of the Smart Export Guarantee in 2020, and particularly after the energy crisis hit in 2021.
More solar panel systems were installed in 2023 than any year since 2015 – and this wave of popularity has kept flowing into 2024.
There have been 334,000 solar panel installations since January 2022, which has grown the proportion of UK households with solar panels from 3.5% to 4.9%.
Considering just 183,050 solar panel systems were installed from the start of 2016 to the end of 2021, this represents a massive uplift.
🐉 Anglesey is the UK county with the highest percentage of solar homes
The Isle of Anglesey has the highest percentage of solar homes in the UK, at 13.82%.
The Welsh island county is closely followed by another Welsh county, Ceredigion, and south-west English counties Devon and Dorset.
🌞 South West England is the top solar region in the UK
South West England has the highest percentage of homes with solar panels, as you can see in the map above.
7.08% of households in the South West have gone solar, which puts the region well ahead of its closest competitors. Wales is second with 6.01%, just ahead of the East Midlands on 5.63%.
There are savings to be gained beyond the south and central regions of the UK, as shown by the fact that 4.83% of homes in North East England have solar panels – which is above the national average.
💂 Greater London has the lowest percentage of solar panels installed
Just 1.43% of households in Greater London have had solar panels installed, leaving the county rock-bottom of the rankings, behind fellow slow adopters in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
This modest adoption rate is largely down to the high number of flats in these urban areas, as well as the large part of the population who can’t afford the high upfront cost of solar panels.
Scotland is responsible for 12 out of the 15 UK counties with the lowest solar adoption rates, with Greater London, West Midlands, and Antrim the odd ones out.
Before you get solar panels, it’s wise to find out how widespread and popular the technology is – and whether your region of the country has jumped on board.
In this guide, we’ll run through how many homes have solar panels, which areas have the most and fewest solar installations, and how the UK compares with Europe in the solar stakes.
If you would like to see the savings you could get from a solar & battery system, answer a few quick questions and we’ll provide an estimate.
How many UK households have solar panels?
More than 1.4 million households in the UK have solar panels, according to the latest government data.
That means 4.9% of the UK’s 28.4 million households have gone solar.
As recently as December 2020, fewer than a million UK homes had solar panels – which shows how far we've come in relatively little time.
🤔 Thinking of going solar? Here's why a larger system makes sense ⬇️
When you’re switching to solar, it's worth getting as large a solar & battery system as you can.
A few extra solar panels won't add much to the overall cost, but in most cases they'll have a big impact on your energy bill savings.
And for the majority of homes, a larger battery will significantly increase the value you get from your solar panels.
To understand all the key reasons in detail, check out the articles below.
How has this increased over time?
The first household to get solar panels in the UK was the Oxford Ecohome, which made the leap in 1995, but take-up over the next 15 years was glacial.
The government started recording installation numbers in 2010, when just 23,757 households went solar – but the subsequent years have seen an explosion in solar demand across the UK.
Check out the chart below to see how the number of homes in the UK with solar panels has changed over time.
The spike in solar installations in the first half of the 2010s was largely prompted by the government’s Feed-in Tariffs scheme, launched in 2010, which paid solar owners for all the electricity they generated and exported.
As the government put steadily less funding towards this initiative from 2016 onwards, installation numbers fell – but they’ve climbed rapidly since the start of the Smart Export Guarantee in 2020, and particularly after the energy crisis hit in 2021.
More solar panel systems are being installed now per month than at any time since 2015.
There have been 334,000 solar panel installations since January 2022, which has grown the proportion of UK households with solar panels from 3.5% to 4.9%.
Considering just 183,050 solar panel systems were installed from the start of 2016 to the end of 2021, this represents a massive uplift.
Which parts of the UK have the most installations?
South West England has the highest percentage of homes with solar panels, as you can see in the map above.
7.08% of households in the South West have gone solar, which puts the region well ahead of its closest competitors. Wales is second with 6.01%, just ahead of the East Midlands on 5.63%.
There are savings to be gained beyond the south and central regions of the UK, as shown by the fact that 4.83% of homes in North East England have solar panels – which is above the national average.
We’ve also broken down the number of solar homes by county. In this category, the Isle of Anglesey has the highest percentage in the UK, at 13.82%.
The Welsh island county is closely followed by another Welsh county, Ceredigion, and south-west English counties Devon and Dorset.
County | Households with solar installations |
---|---|
Isle of Anglesey | |
Ceredigion | |
Devon | |
Dorset | |
Cambridgeshire | |
Monmouthshire | |
Powys | |
Pembrokeshire | |
Scottish Borders | |
Aberdeenshire | |
Rutland | |
Wrexham | |
Cornwall | |
Herefordshire | |
Nottinghamshire |
The data for Scotland is based on council areas, whereas the data for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland was taken on a county level.
The amount of households with solar panels in different areas comes from the MCS Data Dashboard, and is true as of February 2024.
We sourced the number of households from the 2021 UK Census, where possible.
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Solar adoption by English county
Many English counties have adopted solar panels at higher rates than other parts of the UK, with the country’s higher levels of sunlight making going solar even more profitable.
Let’s take a look at how the top 25 English counties perform.
County | Households with solar installations |
---|---|
Devon | |
Dorset | |
Cambridgeshire | |
Rutland | |
Cornwall | |
Herefordshire | |
Nottinghamshire | |
Suffolk | |
Somerset | |
Norfolk | |
Lincolnshire | |
Leicestershire | |
East Sussex | |
Derbyshire | |
Northumberland | |
Gloucestershire | |
Wiltshire | |
Staffordshire | |
Cumbria | |
Hampshire | |
Shropshire | |
Essex | |
Oxfordshire |
The South West, East, and East Midlands regions dominate the solar adoption stakes in England, with only Herefordshire in the West Midlands bucking this trend among the top 10 counties.
Devon, Dorset, and Cornwall make up three of the top five, solidifying the South West’s position as the most popular place for solar in the country.
Which parts of the UK have the fewest installations?
Just 1.43% of households in Greater London have had solar panels installed, leaving the county rock-bottom of the rankings, behind fellow slow adopters in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
This modest adoption rate is largely down to the high number of flats in these urban areas, as well as the large part of the population who can’t afford the high upfront cost of solar panels.
Scotland is responsible for 12 out of the 15 UK counties with the lowest solar adoption rates, with Greater London, West Midlands, and Antrim the odd ones out.
County | Households with solar installations |
---|---|
Greater London | |
City of Glasgow | |
City of Edinburgh | |
Shetland | |
City of Aberdeen | |
East Renfrewshire | |
Dundee | |
West Midlands | |
East Dunbartonshire | |
West Dunbartonshire | |
Inverclyde | |
Falkirk | |
North Lanarkshire | |
Antrim | |
Renfrewshire |
Which type of property is most likely to have solar?
The most likely type of property to have a solar installation is an owner-occupied household, as these properties make up 70.6% of solar owners.
On the flip side, only 12.8% of privately rented homes have solar panels.
In terms of building type, 36% of solar panel systems are on detached homes, just ahead of semi-detached properties, on 31.4%.
Terraced houses own 19.9% of solar installations, ahead of flats, which once again lag behind on 12%.
How popular is solar in the rest of Europe?
Solar is very popular in the rest of Europe.
Europe has a total solar capacity of 259.99 GW, according to the European Commission, which is around 24.7% of the world’s overall capacity, based on data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.
That’s the second-highest percentage a continent holds, behind Asia, and around twice as much solar capacity as North America – not bad for a continent that only holds roughly 9.5% of the world’s population.
The UK has the sixth-highest capacity in Europe, but sits behind every similarly sized country, including the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain, and France – plus the Netherlands, which has around a quarter of the UK’s population.
In fact, in terms of capacity per person, the great majority of European countries rank above the UK, according to solar and population statistics from Our World in Data.
The UK is at least ahead of Ireland in these stakes, as well as a handful of other nations including Croatia, Latvia, and Romania.
If you’d like to know more about solar adoption around the world, check out our guide to solar energy statistics.
Summary
The areas of the UK with the highest solar adoption rates are broadly also the best places for solar panels – and that’s no coincidence.
On average, households in Wales and the south of England can save more money with solar panels than other regions of the country, which makes the prospect more attractive.
However, solar panels can still save you hundreds of pounds per year if you live in other parts of the UK, and the recent record-breaking run of installations all over the nation seems to show that households know it.
If you’re wondering how much a solar & battery system could save you, just answer a few quick questions and we’ll provide you with an estimate.
UK homes with solar: FAQs
What percentage of houses in the UK have solar panels?
4.9% of households in the UK have solar panels.
That’s 1.4 million homes with solar installations as of June 2024, according to government data, out of 28.4 million households.
The percentage of homes with solar panels is growing, too – two years ago, just 3.5% of UK properties had gone solar.
What percentage of UK energy is solar?
Solar provided 4.52% of the UK’s electricity generation in 2023, according to the National Grid Electricity System Operator.
That percentage has more than doubled since 2015, when solar was responsible for 2.25% of our electricity.
We now get 26,447 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of the electricity we use from solar energy per year.
What if every house in the UK had solar panels?
If every household in the UK had solar panels, we’d be able to produce roughly 95,880 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean, free electricity each year, just from domestic systems.
That’s 3.6 times more solar electricity than we generate now from all sources.
It would save households around £32.6 billion per year and cut our annual carbon footprint by 28 million tonnes of CO2 – about a 7% saving, according to government data.
The national grid would also need to massively expand its storage capacity, to make the most of the extra energy generated each day.
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Written byJosh Jackman
Josh has written about the rapid rise of home solar for the past five years. His data-driven work has been featured in United Nations and World Health Organisation documents, as well as publications including The Eco Experts, Financial Times, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Times, and The Sun. Josh has also been interviewed as a renewables expert on BBC One’s Rip-Off Britain, ITV1’s Tonight show, and BBC Radio 4 and 5.