PVTIME – The UK government has launched its largest ever public investment scheme for home upgrades: the £15 billion Warm Homes Plan, which aims to retrofit up to five million households with energy-efficient measures. These measures include rooftop solar panels, battery energy storage systems, heat pumps, and insulation. The government’s goal is to triple the number of households with rooftop solar panels by 2030.
UK households will be able to access government-backed, low-interest or interest-free loans to install solar panels, which the government says will spark a rooftop revolution. Financing will also cover battery storage and heat pump installations, with the key goal of lifting around one million households out of fuel poverty by 2030. Landlords will be responsible for keeping rental properties warm by installing or upgrading energy facilities and will be required to invest in retrofits to reduce energy bills for private and social tenants. The government adds that these technologies will reduce national reliance on natural gas and shield households from future price spikes, with further implementation details to be released later this year.
Data from the Solar Trade Association shows that nearly 1.6 million UK households already have solar PV systems, most of which are paired with battery storage. In 2025, a record 257,000 small-scale solar installations were completed, 70% of which were on residential rooftops. The scheme will support the upcoming Future Homes Standard, which will make solar panels the default requirement for all new-build homes, thus aligning with the UK’s July 2025 Solar Roadmap. The roadmap aims to increase cumulative solar capacity from over 18GW in Q1 2025 to 45–47GW by 2030, while Solar Energy UK forecasts that an additional 10GW from small-scale rooftop solar will increase total capacity to around 57GW, up from the current 24GW.
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