If you’re looking to get solar panels, one thing won’t have escaped you. They are expensive.
Roughly £8,000 on average (see the details on my post here).
The thing is, they save you money too. So you could either wait and save up, paying those greedy energy companies as you do. Or…
Can you get solar panels on finance?
Yes. I mean, you can get everything on finance nowadays, can’t you? But you can certainly get solar panels, and it’s very common. And there are 0% APR options available too.
Most of the big installers offer finance options (see list below).
You’ll see it under a few names: finance, pay monthly, subscription. Whatever. It’s fundamentally the same model whereby you get the panels and pay over a certain time period (3 to 20 years, usually). You save on energy bills immediately. If you pay off quickly (e.g. 3 years), you’ll incur no interest at 0% APR. Longer periods will cost up to 9.9% APR.
IMPORTANT NOTE. If you’ve been following the solar industry long enough, you might remember ‘solar leasing’, otherwise known as ‘rent-a-roof’. This worked differently. The installer would provide panels, but collect your Feed-in Tariff payments from the government, which used to be very tasty. Until they weren’t.
Is it worth getting solar panels on finance?
Yes, in many cases. Getting solar panels will save you between £300 and £700 a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust. Of course, this depends on your location, placement of panels, and especially whether you use more electricity in the daytime or evenings.
Your finance payments will of course depend on the length of the term and your APR. It can be as little as £69 a month, and as much as £300 per month for an average system. In some cases you can make a ‘profit’ every month straight away, but obviously if you pay the loan back quicker your monthly payments will be higher.
The key thing to consider is total interest paid.
Let’s say you could get a finance deal at 9.9% APR. Well for a 5 year term, with an average sized system, you’ll pay something like £2000 in interest (Heatable have a few worked examples on their site). So in this scenario, it’s worth doing if you assume you’ll save ~£500 a year on energy, and you won’t have the cash to buy a system outright in the next four years.
Here’s my handy decisionometer:
| I have £8k to spare right now | Buy solar panels outright |
| I’ll be able to save £8k over 3 years | Get a 3 year 0% APR deal |
| I’ll be able to save £8k over 3-7 years | Consider a 5 or 7 year finance deal |
| I’ll never save £8k in cash | Consider a longer subscription deal |
And of course, please do your own maths and completely disregard this. It’s just something you’ve read online.
Which companies do solar panels on finance?
There are lots and lots of options. Many solar installers will have partnerships with finance companies, and you can ever do third party financing (like you might a car). Here are the ones that jumped out at me.
EON Next
EON are extremely established in the UK solar industry. I was working with them 10 years ago, and they’re still going strong. This is a key point: you do not want your installer to go bust. It’s very common in the solar industry.
Eon offer a 3 year, 0% APR option. Plus lots of others, I imagine, although the other rates are harder to access online.
Best APR: 0% over 3 years
OVO Energy
OVO are another well-established option, who also offer 0% APR over 3 years.
Best APR: 0% over 3 years
Octopus
Octopus don’t seem to offer 0% APR deals (at time of writing). They offer 9.9%, spread over 3, 5, or 7 years (which is fairly typical for longer deals).
However, Octopus are known for their excellent SEG rates. If you get solar panels, you’ll sell some energy back to the grid and Octopus pay the most.
Best APR: 9.9% over 3, 5, or 7 years.
Heatable
Heatable made their name in boilers, but they’re now in solar too. They’re a very likeable company, who give customers proper transparency about costs.
They also have the standard 9.9% finance option. They’ll let you spread this over 3 to 10 years. I couldn’t find a 0% APR option at time of writing.
However they are definitely worth checking out as you can ‘build a system’ on their site, comparing different battery setups and so on. You can learn a lot, even if you don’t pick them in the end.
Best APR: 9.9% over 3-10 years
Sunsave
Sunsave are a little bit different, and market themselves as the ‘first solar panel subscription’. I don’t know about that, but their model will certainly be attractive for some, as they estimate you’ll make a profit from month 1.
They do this by spreading the payments over a whopping 20 years. And they also tack on some maintenance fees, leaving the total fees at around £6.5k for a £10k system. On the plus side, they do include a battery in their pricing.
Worth a look, but definitely not the most efficient way to avoid interest payments.
Best APR: 5.9% over 20 years
