Do I have to register my plug-in solar kit?
The short answer
Yes. It is a legal requirement, and it is free.
You tell your electricity network operator, the company that owns the wires in your street, on or before the day you switch the kit on. It is one online form. Nobody can refuse you.
This is the step most people miss, because it sounds like the sort of red tape the new rules were supposed to abolish. It is not. It is the one obligation that survived, and it is a genuine legal duty rather than a suggestion.
Who you are telling, and why
Your energy supplier is who you pay. Your network operator is who owns the cables, the substations and the poles. You choose your supplier. You do not choose your network operator: there is one for each region and you get whichever covers your address.
They need to know because a plug-in kit turns your house from a place that only consumes electricity into one that occasionally pushes a little back. On its own that is trivial. Across a street of forty houses it is not, and the people balancing the local network need to know it is there.
Put your postcode into our calculator and it names your network operator.
How to do it
Have the details ready
Your name, your postcode, and the make and model of the kit. That is all it asks for.
Use the national registration site
It is at myplugin.solar, the UK Plug-in Solar Registration website. One portal covers the whole of England, Scotland and Wales: you register once and your details are passed to the right network operator for you. There is no need to work out who they are first, and no trade account of any kind is required.
Pick your device from the list
The portal only offers devices on the approved list. If yours is not there, it may still be going through assessment, or it may not be compliant. Do not plug it in and hope.
Keep the confirmation
You get an on-screen confirmation rather than an email, so take a screenshot or note the date. Keep it with your receipt.
When to do it
The law is specific. The person installing the kit must ensure the network operator is advised “before, or at the time of, commissioning”. In other words, on or before the day you plug it in.
You will still find older network operator pages saying you have 28 days after commissioning, and one saying 30. Those predate the plug-in rules and describe a different process. Register before you plug it in and the question does not arise. It takes five minutes and there is nothing to wait for.
Tell them again if you permanently remove the kit. The product rules require the instructions to cover both connecting and decommissioning.
Is it 28 days, or before I switch on?
You will see both answers, which is confusing and worth settling.
The law says before or at the time you switch on. We checked the wording ourselves. Regulation 22(2)(c) requires that “the person installing the source of energy ensures that the distributor is advised of the intention to use the source of energy in parallel with the network before, or at the time of, commissioning the source”. There is no 28 day period anywhere in that regulation.
So where does 28 days come from? It appears in older network operator guidance about microgeneration fitted by an installer, where the installer notifies the connection after the work is done. One operator says 30 days rather than 28. That process predates plug-in solar and was written for a different situation.
We have not been able to read the grid rules themselves, Engineering Recommendation G98, because they are not published freely, so we cannot tell you exactly how the two fit together. What we can tell you is the part that is not in doubt:
- Register before you plug it in and you have satisfied the regulation, whatever any deadline elsewhere says.
- If you have already plugged one in without registering, do it now rather than worrying about which clock applies. It is free and nobody is going to penalise you for putting it right.
Anyone telling you that you have a month to get round to it is describing a different process from the one that applies to you.
When to contact your operator directly instead
- Your device is not on the approved list.
- Your setup is over 800W, or hard-wired rather than plugged in.
- You are adding a plug-in kit to a house that already has rooftop solar or a battery.
- You are removing a device permanently.
In those cases the simple route does not apply and you are into a normal connection conversation.
Questions people ask
Is it an application? Can they say no?
No and no. You are notifying them, not asking permission. There is no assessment and no decision to wait for. That is the whole point of the change in the law.
Does it cost anything?
No. If anything asks you for a payment to register a plug-in solar device, stop and check you are on the right site.
Do I need to tell my energy supplier too?
Not for the legal duty, which is to the network operator. Octopus Energy’s own guidance says you only need to do it in one place. If you are chasing an export tariff, that is a separate conversation with your supplier.
What if I move house?
If you take the kit with you, register it at the new address, because the notification is about a property on a particular part of the network. If you leave it behind, tell the new owner they have inherited it and that it is registered to the address.
Sources: Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002, regulation 22(2)(c) as amended; the Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification version 2, section 8.2.3.1; Energy Saving Trust, “Plug-in solar panels”, which names and links the portal as the “UK Plug-in Solar Registration website”; Octopus Energy plug-in solar guidance. Read 26 and 27 September 2026. Regulation 22 extends to England, Wales and Scotland. One note on our own checking: myplugin.solar blocks automated access, so we have not been able to read the portal itself. We are relying on the Energy Saving Trust naming it. If it does not look right when you get there, stop and contact your network operator directly.