Plug in a solar kit and you have to tell somebody. Not the company that sends you the bill — the company that owns the electricity cables in your street. And it is your job, not the shop's.
That much is settled. What is not settled is how you do it: no network company has published a form for this yet, and several of the forms they do have ask for the name of the electrician you did not use. This page is what each one currently says, and what to do when the form does not fit.
(The industry calls these companies Distribution Network Operators, or DNOs. That is the word you will see on their websites and forms, so it is worth knowing.)
Where the obligation comes from
Ofgem's decision DCRP/MP/26/02, published 11 August 2026, approves the change to G98 that made plug-in microgeneration workable. It says it directly:
"The modification proposal requires customers to notify their DNO of installation or decommissioning of a Plug-in Micro-generator and has introduced simplified G98 forms to facilitate this."
The reason it is the customer rather than an installer is the whole point of the category. Traditional G98 relies on notification by a "Competent Installer". Because these devices are designed to be connected by the householder, the modification gives relief from that requirement and moves the notification duty onto the person who plugged it in.
Registration does not discharge notification. They are two separate obligations and it is easy to assume the first covers the second. The manufacturer registers the device, once, before it goes on sale. You notify the network that your home now has one connected. The government's interim product specification is explicit that completing a type test is not, on its own, demonstrating compliance with G98 — and it requires every device to carry a permanent marking stating that DNO notification is mandatory, plus a QR code to the registration and deregistration obligations.
You may only have one
This is the detail most likely to be missed, and it is a hard limit.
Ofgem's decision restricts plug-in microgenerators to one per customer installation — that is, one per household. That is stricter than the product specification's "one per final circuit", and where the two conflict, G98 takes precedence.
Government has said it intends to move to one per circuit eventually. Until that amendment is made, the decision states that the current requirement limiting installations to one device per household continues to apply.
As at 29 August 2026 the live limit is one device per household. If you were planning two kits, you are planning one.
Now the awkward part: nobody has built the form
Ofgem moved the duty to the householder. As at 29 August 2026, not one Distribution Network Operator has published a form or a page specific to plug-in solar. Every route is the pre-existing general micro-generation process, built for professionally installed systems — and several of those forms assume an installer is filling them in.
What we found on the operators' own sites, checked 29 August 2026:
| Operator | Route | Deadline, in their own words | Asks for installer details? |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Grid Electricity Distribution | Online G98 form | 28 days from commissioning | Yes — asks for installer contact information |
| Northern Powergrid | General G98 form | 28 days from connecting | Page assumes an installer |
| SSEN | G98 Form B | 28 days from commissioning | Wording says the installer should notify on your behalf |
| Electricity North West | Form B — described as one a homeowner can complete | Not stated | Not obviously required |
| SP Energy Networks | General G98 | 30 days reported — we could not confirm it on their own site | Circuit diagram and test report reported — unconfirmed |
| UK Power Networks | General G98 | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
Two of the six blocked our automated access, so their rows are second-hand and marked as such. We would rather show you an unconfirmed cell labelled unconfirmed than a confident one we cannot stand behind.
Electricity North West is the outlier in the householder's favour. Its Form B is described as something a homeowner can complete, and it does not obviously demand installer credentials. That is the model the others should follow.
No operator publishes a fee. Whether one exists is neither confirmed nor denied anywhere we could find.
The "28 days" figure, and where it actually comes from
You will see "notify within 28 days" repeated across seller pages and explainer sites. We went looking for it in the documents that govern this — Ofgem's decision, the interim product specification, the government response — and it is not in any of them.
It is, however, published by the network operators themselves: National Grid, Northern Powergrid and SSEN each state 28 days in their own words, on their own sites. So the figure is real; it simply comes from a different place than the sites quoting it imply.
Several other widely repeated specifics we could not source at all: that it "takes twenty minutes", that there are forms with particular names, that there is a particular portal. A cluster of near-identical explainer sites carries the same oddly precise numbers almost verbatim. We are not going to repeat figures we cannot find in a document, and neither should they.
Ofgem's decision also records that the ENA was still developing a consumer-facing notification journey as at 11 August 2026. So if your operator's site has no plug-in solar page, that reflects a process still being built. It does not mean you can skip the step.
What to do
- Find your operator by postcode on the ENA's lookup. It is decided by where you live, not by who you buy electricity from.
- Look for their G98 or micro-generation notification route.
- Where the form assumes an installer, tell them plainly that you are a self-installing householder and ask how you should complete it. That is a question they will have to start answering.
- Notify in writing with your address, the device make and model, and its ENA System Reference — the register entry for the product you actually bought. Our guide to the register covers how to find it.
- Keep proof of what you sent, and when.
We are asking each operator directly how a self-installing householder should complete a form written for installers, and will publish their answers here.
[NEEDS VERIFICATION: direct confirmation from UK Power Networks and SP Energy Networks of their deadline, form and whether installer details are required. Both blocked automated access on 29 August 2026.]
[NEEDS VERIFICATION: whether the ENA's consumer-facing notification journey on Connect Direct is live, and whether it is Connect Direct or a separate product.]
If you rent, or you own a leasehold flat
The permission question is not covered by the new law at all, and it comes before everything on this page.
Government's own guidance is that before buying or installing, people should check whether any permissions are required for the property — which may include permission from a landlord, building owner or freeholder, planning permission, or listed building consent — and that decisions on those requests are a matter for landlords, freeholders and councils.
There is no statutory right to install, no model tenancy clause, and no fast-track consent process. The interim product specification puts responsibility for permissions on the user, including for agreeing how installation costs are apportioned. Ask in writing, before you buy.
What the regulator expressly did not decide
Worth quoting, because it marks the edges of everything above. Ofgem's decision says it:
"does not address, and should not be taken as determining, wider issues relating to product legality, consumer protection, or electrical safety within premises."
and that:
"Consumers remain responsible for ensuring compliance with the applicable requirements relating to installation safety and for considering any consequential impacts, including on insurance arrangements, landlord or building-owner permissions, and any other property-specific obligations that may apply."
Insurance is named there explicitly, and it is a genuine loose end: we checked twelve of the largest UK home insurers and none has published policy wording, an FAQ or a help page dealing with plug-in solar. One insurer has said in press comments that such a device would typically count as contents; that is a comment to a journalist, not policy wording, and no other insurer has said anything at all. Ask yours in writing before you buy, and get the answer in writing.
You will also see it claimed, by sellers, that an unregistered device invalidates your insurance. We could not verify that. No insurer and no industry body has published anything saying so. The clearest statement we found is a joint statement from five electrical safety bodies — the ECA, Electrical Safety First, the IET, NICEIC and SELECT, 9 June 2026 — that it is "not yet clear how insurers would respond" if a fault were linked to a self-installed, undeclared plug-in device. It may turn out to be true. As far as we can establish, nobody has actually said it.
Checked 29 August 2026 against Ofgem's decision, the government's interim product specification and the network operators' own published pages.
Related reading: is plug-in solar legal in the UK?, and what the ENA register is.