Record sunshine delivered £1.21bn in savings to UK solar households
Posted by: electime 20th October 2026
2025 was confirmed as the UK’s sunniest year on record, with the Met Office recording more hours of sunshine than in any year since records began in 1910[1], and 2026 has continued the trend, with July confirmed as the UK’s sunniest month on record so far this year[5].
According to new research for solar energy experts at Uswitch, that run of record-breaking sunshine has translated into real money for solar households, with the average home solar system generating 5,226kWh of electricity in 2025 alone[2].
That energy was worth almost £758 in combined bill savings and export income[2], £170 from power used directly in the home, and £588 earned by selling surplus electricity back to the grid. Collectively, that puts almost £1.21 billion into the pockets of the UK’s 1.6 million solar homes[2][3]. Households who are out all day mid-week currently self-consume just one in eight units (12.5%) of what their panels generate, with the remainder exported[2].
The picture looks noticeably better for households who are home during the day. Uswitch’s modelling shows a home-all-day household self-consuming closer to a quarter (24.7%) of what the same system generates, worth an estimated £842 in combined savings and export income over the year, £336 from self-use and £506 from export[2]. The gap between the two profiles underlines how much of solar’s value depends on when power is used, not just how much of it is generated.
Generation swung sharply with the seasons, peaking at 744kWh in May, during what the Met Office confirmed was the sunniest spring on record, before falling to just 126kWh in December, a six-fold difference between the brightest and dullest months of the year[1][2]. The exceptional conditions coincided with continued growth in UK solar adoption, with almost 182,000 new home systems installed in 2025 alone, adding 881 megawatts of capacity and pushing the number of solar-powered homes in the UK past 1.6 million[3].
Across the UK, solar households exported 443.1 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2024-25, earning £56.97 million in export payments[4], indicating how much value still sits untapped on British rooftops. With sunshine records being broken and panel costs continuing to fall, Uswitch is encouraging homeowners considering the switch to compare solar panel prices.
Ben Gallizzi, Uswitch solar energy expert comments:
“2025 has shown just how much value a genuinely sunny year can unlock for solar households, with the average system paying back close to £758 in savings and export income in a single year, and with 2026 picking up where it left off, that trend looks set to continue.
“And so far this year our customers have seen average savings of £964 off their annual bill when comparing solar panel installers at Uswitch.
“If sunny conditions like this become the norm rather than the exception, that value only stands to grow, and cheaper panels, bigger systems and rising battery adoption all point the same way.
“Batteries are worth a particularly close look if you’re out at work most of the day. They store what your panels generate while you’re away, so instead of selling that power back to the grid for a fraction of its value, you get to use it yourself once you’re home in the evening. For anyone who feels their solar isn’t quite paying off the way they hoped, that’s often the easiest fix.”
Uswitch’s solar battery guide has more on how they work and whether they’re worth it.
For more advice or to compare solar panels, visit Uswitch
References
- Met Office confirmed 2025 as the UK’s sunniest year on record, with 1,648.5 hours of sunshine recorded in 2025, surpassing the previous record set in 2003 by 61.4 hours (Met Office sunshine records date back to 1910).
- Uswitch.com analysis of average domestic solar system output, based on 2025 UK solar irradiance data and standard performance assumptions (performance ratio: 0.83; average system size: 4.83kWp). Headline savings and export figures use a self-consumption rate of 12.5%, Uswitch’s own MCS-methodology modelling for a household that is out of the home all day, the closest of Uswitch’s modelled occupancy scenarios to the “out during weekdays” profile originally cited. The home-all-day comparison figure uses a self-consumption rate of 24.7%, modelled for a household present in the home throughout the day; a middle scenario, someone home for roughly half the day, was separately modelled at 19.6% self-consumption. Export value calculated using a typical export tariff of approximately 12.9p/kWh, derived from the national export volume and payment figures cited in footnote [4]; self-use value calculated using 2025 average electricity price cap unit rates. This calculation applies a single flat rate across the year; in practice, export value will vary by season, generally lower in the winter months when generation is low and higher in summer when there is more surplus generation to export.
- Government Energy Trends statistics (Section 6.3, Renewables), cumulative UK solar PV capacity and installation counts, December 2024 to December 2025.
- Ofgem, Smart Export Guarantee Annual Report, April 2024 to March 2025 (ofgem.gov.uk).
- Met Office confirmed July 2026 as the sunniest July on record for the UK, England and Wales, with England and Wales recording their sunniest calendar month ever observed; six of the first seven months of 2026 have seen above-average UK sunshine.
