Some of these were never true. Several were true once and have quietly stopped being true, which is worse, because they still circulate.
“There is not enough sun in Britain”
Panels respond to daylight, not direct sunshine. Britain gets less than Spain and considerably more than people assume.
The UK passed two million solar installations during 2026, and the first half of the year produced almost 150000 certified solar installations. People are not installing them for fun.
The honest caveat: generation is strongly seasonal. A December day produces a fraction of a June day. That affects how you should think about batteries and heat pumps, but it does not make solar unviable.
“You get paid a great rate by the government”
Not any more The Feed-in Tariff, which paid a government-set, index-linked rate for twenty years, closed to new applicants after 31 Mar 2019.
What exists now is the Smart Export Guarantee, where suppliers set their own rates, currently around 12p to 13p per kWh on a flat tariff.
This is the single most out-of-date belief about UK solar, and a lot of material online still quietly assumes the old scheme. See export payments.
“There is a government grant for solar panels”
Not a universal one for ordinary owner-occupiers There is zero VAT, government-backed lending, and targeted schemes for lower-income households.
One genuine exception: ECO4, the Energy Company Obligation, is open until 31 Dec 2026 and can fully fund measures including solar for low-income, fuel-poor and vulnerable households in England, Wales and Scotland. Most readers will not qualify, solar only counts in some circumstances, and funding can run out before the closing date. See grants and funding.
“Panels stop working when it is cloudy”
They produce less, not nothing. Output on an overcast day is a fraction of a bright one, but it is not zero.
They do produce nothing at night, which is what a battery is for.
“Solar panels will keep my power on in a blackout”
No, not unless you specifically pay for backup, and a battery on its own does not change this.
A standard system shuts down when the grid fails, as a safety requirement, so that nobody is putting power onto lines engineers may be working on. This catches people out badly. See power cuts.
“Panels need constant cleaning and maintenance”
In Britain, rarely. Rain does most of the cleaning on a normally pitched roof, and there is very little to maintain.
Expect to replace the inverter at some point. Otherwise, look at the monitoring occasionally so you notice if something stops working. See cleaning.
“It takes more energy to make a panel than it produces”
Not true, and not true for a long time. A modern panel repays its manufacturing energy within a few years and then generates for decades. See carbon.
“Your roof has to face south”
South is best. East and west work, losing perhaps a fifth of annual output while spreading generation across more of the day, which can suit your usage better than a south roof peaking at midday when nobody is home.
North-facing is generally not worth it.
“A heat pump will cut your heating bills”
We are including this one because it is the newest myth and the industry is building it.
At current prices, a heat pump needs a seasonal performance factor of about 2.81 just to match a gas boiler on running cost, and the median in UK field trials is 2.8.
A well-designed installation saves money. A typical one roughly breaks even. A poor one costs more. The real case rests on the grant, losing the gas standing charge, carbon, and what solar does to the sums. See heat pump running costs.
“You should wait, it will get cheaper”
Panel prices have fallen a great deal, and most of that fall has already happened. Meanwhile the zero VAT rate ends on 31 Mar 2027, after which it goes to 5%.
We are not going to tell you to hurry, because that is what a pushy salesperson says and the difference is not enormous. But “wait and it will be much cheaper” is not well supported either.