Worried about buying? Your doubts answered

Price it against what it protects: a freezer full of food, a working router when you work from home, a CPAP machine through the night. A 1 kWh station that covers fridge, router, lights and phones for about half a day starts at £419. It also earns its keep outside power cuts: camping, the garden or a van. Who gets value.

Most are short. The ones that matter come with winter storms and can last a night or more, and they are hard to plan for. A station sits in a cupboard charged and ready, needs a top-up every few months, and doubles as a camping or garden battery the rest of the year.

Almost every current model uses LFP (lithium iron phosphate) cells, which are far more stable than the lithium-ion in older gadgets. Buy from the maker's UK store or a big UK retailer, keep the vents clear and charge it indoors. Fire risk explained.

LFP stations are rated for 3,000 to 10,000 charge cycles. Used once a week, even 3,000 cycles is over 50 years, and five-year warranties are now common. How long they last.

That is the right question, and the box rarely answers it. Pick your appliances in What will it run? and you will only see stations with enough output and battery for them, with the hours each one lasts.

No wiring and no fuel. You charge it from a wall socket, then plug things into it like a normal socket. Many switch on by themselves when the mains drops. If weight worries you, filter by it: some 1 kWh models are about 11 kg and smaller ones under 6 kg.

For days without power, perhaps. For the hours-long cuts most homes get, a station is silent, safe indoors, needs no petrol and can take over by itself. Side by side.

Buy from a UK seller and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is on your side: 30 days to reject a faulty item, and within six months the seller must show it wasn't faulty when sold. Register the maker's warranty on day one. What owners wish they had known.

On the government's figures an 800 W kit tilted south saves about £113 a year in a home where someone is in during the day. The cheapest register-listed kit we list is £449 (sold out at the seller today), so that is roughly 4 years, and panels usually last far longer. Your home will differ: check yours in six questions.

Yes in England, Wales and Scotland since 27 August 2026, for kits listed on the ENA Type Test Register. We only recommend kits whose listing we could confirm, and each kit page shows it. The rules ask for a modern consumer unit and no extension leads; if your fuse box is old, get an electrician to check it first. Is plug-in solar safe?

East or west still works. The government's figure for an upright east or west wall is about £72 a year with the same kit. North-facing is the one case where it is rarely worth it, and our calculator says so. Every direction compared.

Plug-in solar was designed with flats in mind: no roof, no installer. You need your landlord's or freeholder's permission, and when you move you unplug it and take it with you, telling the network operator both times.

Fix the panels with the maker's brackets, plug the kit into an outdoor socket, and tell your network operator using the QR code on the label. No meter change and no installer for the kit itself.

Savings move with the price you pay. Our figures use the Ofgem cap of 26.32p a kWh; put your own price into the calculator to see what a lower or higher price does to payback.

Not under the plug-in rules: batteries are outside them and need fitting by a registered electrician. A plug-in kit pays back fastest on power you use in the day. Are solar batteries safe and legal?