British Gas Solar Panels: What You Actually Get

British Gas sells solar. British Gas does not install solar. That single fact explains most of what follows, and it is stated plainly on Hive's own website rather than being something we dug up.

We install solar for a living, in the same region British Gas uses in its own savings example, so take this as a competitor's view — but a sourced one. Everything below links to where it came from.

The prices

British Gas and Hive are the same group and sell the same packages at different prices:

That £575 gap on an identical 8-panel system is worth noticing before you buy. The same Hive page also quotes a battery "installed from £4,290" alongside the £1,800 figure, which we cannot reconcile — so get the battery price confirmed in writing before you sign anything.

For context, the independent market in 2026 runs roughly £5,000–£6,500 for a 3 kWp system and £6,500–£8,000 for 4 kWp, so the headline panel pricing is competitive. It is the rest of the package that needs examining.

Who actually turns up

This is the part worth reading twice. Hive's own FAQ states that Hive does not carry out installations. Instead it introduces you, based on your postcode, to one of three third-party companies: Glow Green, Infinity Renewables, or Greener Energy Group in Scotland.

The same page says Hive does not guarantee the work those companies carry out, and that it is for you to satisfy yourself they are suitable.

The British Gas page is vaguer still — it refers only to expert partners and an independent installer, naming nobody.

To be fair about this: Glow Green, who are on the current list, score 4.6 out of 5 across roughly 16,000 Trustpilot reviews, with genuine praise from solar customers and some complaints about cancelled installation dates. That is a decent record. The point is not that the installers are bad — it is that you do not know which company you are getting until late in the process, and the brand you bought from has told you in writing that it does not stand behind their workmanship.

What hardware you get

Not published. Anywhere.

British Gas and Hive describe the panels as 470 W premium and the battery as 5.23 kWh in one place and 5.32 kWh in another. Neither names the panel manufacturer, the inverter manufacturer, or the battery manufacturer. The only brand evidence we could find anywhere on the site was in the alt text of an image, which appeared to reference a Sunsynk battery — that is not a published specification and should not be relied on.

You should know what is going on your roof. Panel, inverter, mounting system and battery are all named on any quote we issue, with the datasheets attached, because the difference between a good inverter and a cheap one is most of the difference between a system that works in ten years and one that does not.

The warranty

Ten years on the system, battery and inverter, per Hive. The British Gas page says ten years and nothing further.

What is not published is the workmanship warranty — how long the installation itself is covered, and whether that cover is insurance-backed so it survives the installer going out of business. Given that the installer is a third party Hive has disclaimed responsibility for, this is the question we would want answered in writing.

The finance deal is the real story

British Gas offers finance through Sunsave, part-funded by the government's Warm Homes Loan Scheme. The published representative example is worth setting out in full:

• Amount borrowed: £6,753
• Representative APR: 8.9%, at 5.2% fixed interest
• Term: 240 monthly instalments — twenty years
• Interest: £4,085
• Fees: £3,322, including a £14 per month monitoring and maintenance charge
• Total repayable: £14,160

You borrow £6,753 and repay £14,160 over twenty years. The system itself will not have been replaced in that time, but you will have paid for it twice.

Compare that with what is available elsewhere: E.ON Next currently offers 0% APR over five years on solar, and Octopus offers 4.9% fixed over up to ten years. If you need finance, those are materially better deals, and a conventional unsecured loan from your own bank is usually better again.

The export tariff

British Gas pays 12p per kWh on its Export Premium tariff, which requires you to take your electricity supply from British Gas, have a smart meter, own the property, and have a system of 15 kWp or less. Above 15 kWp it drops to 8p on Export Extra. If you are not a British Gas customer, the standalone Export SEG rate is 3p.

That 3p figure is the one to hold on to. It is among the lowest in the market, and it is what you get if you later switch supplier.

There is also a Hive Solar Saver offer giving 25% off imported electricity — for twelve months only, excluding the standing charge, and requiring you to become a new British Gas direct debit customer within two weeks of being invited.

Where British Gas genuinely wins

An honest comparison has to concede the real advantages:

• Covenant strength. A ten-year warranty from a FTSE-listed company is worth more than the same promise from a two-person firm, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
• One phone number. If supply, solar and billing are all in one place, some people genuinely prefer that.
• Headline panel pricing is competitive with the independent market.

Where an independent installer wins

• You know who is coming, and the company that designed your system is the company that installed it and the company you ring when something is wrong.
• Every component is named on the quote, with datasheets.
• The system is sized to your roof, not to a package. The most common and most substantiated complaint across supplier-fitted installations is systems coming in smaller than the roof could take, because standardised packages and remote design rules drive the specification rather than a surveyor standing on your roof.
• The workmanship warranty is published and you can read it before you buy.
• Export is not locked to one supplier. With an MCS certificate from any installer you can take the best supply-linked rate on the market — currently around 12p to 16p — and move when it changes.

One thing worth being straight about

Some suppliers offer export rates you can only get if they did the installation. E.ON currently pays 17.5p on that basis, and Good Energy up to 25p. British Gas does not do this; its 12p Premium rate is available to any customer with a valid MCS certificate, whoever fitted the system.

That is genuinely to British Gas's credit, and it means choosing an independent installer costs you nothing in export income here.

A note on timing

The 0% VAT rate on domestic solar and battery installations runs until 31 March 2027, after which it reverts to 5%. On a £7,000 system that is £350. Not decisive, but it is a real deadline rather than a sales tactic.

Our view

If you want solar from a household name, with finance arranged and someone large standing behind the warranty, British Gas is a reasonable choice — provided you ask for the installer's name, the component list and the workmanship warranty terms in writing before you commit, and provided you do not take the twenty-year finance.

If you would rather know exactly who is on your roof and exactly what is going on it, get an independent quote alongside. We cover Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, and we are happy to be compared like for like.