- The UK recorded 210,000 MCS-certified installations during the first half, 17% more than a year earlier.
- Solar installations approached 150,000 while battery installations almost doubled to 36,000.
- Certified heat pump installations fell 17%, exposing the market’s dependence on public retrofit programmes.
UK households and small businesses installed record numbers of certified solar and battery systems during the first half of 2026, but heat pump deployment fell sharply as disruption to publicly supported retrofit programmes offset growth in new housing.
MCS recorded 210,000 certified small-scale renewable installations between January and June, equivalent to one every 74 seconds and 17% above the previous first-half record.
Solar provided the largest contribution, with almost 150,000 systems installed, 14% more than during the equivalent period of 2025. Battery installations reached 36,000, nearly twice the previous year’s level and already close to the full-year 2025 record of 40,000.
The 210,000 figure refers to individual certified systems rather than an equivalent number of properties. The same home can appear more than once when it receives solar, a battery and a heat pump.
That distinction is increasingly material. One third of this year’s systems were installed either alongside another technology or at a property already holding an MCS-certified installation. Some 92% of battery installations were at properties with solar panels.
“More and more households are gaining confidence in the benefits of home-grown energy,” MCS managing director Lisa Cooke said in the organisation’s first-half release.
Retreat from clean heat
The figures suggest that solar and storage are becoming a combined consumer proposition. A battery can increase the proportion of rooftop generation used within the home, while time-of-use tariffs allow owners to charge cheaply and avoid expensive peak electricity.
Solar and batteries also offer visible, relatively immediate reductions in electricity purchases without requiring households to replace their main heating systems. That makes adoption easier than for heat pumps, which can require changes to radiators, hot water storage and building fabric.
Certified heat pump installations consequently fell 17% from the first half of 2025. Three quarters of the recorded installations were supported through government programmes, highlighting the market’s exposure to changes in subsidy delivery.
Heat Pump Association UK attributed the downturn partly to the closure of the Energy Company Obligation and slower activity through the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund. Chief executive Charlotte Lee described the decline as “disappointing”, while calling for clarity on low-income support and the consumer loans promised in the Warm Homes Plan.
The association’s sales data offer a more nuanced picture. Space-heating heat pump sales increased 2%, with installations in new homes rising 23%. That suggests the contraction is concentrated in the retrofit segment covered by MCS rather than across the entire supply chain.
New construction accounted for 25% of all technologies recorded by MCS during the half. In the first quarter, an estimated 59% of new homes received certified solar as builders prepared for tighter standards.
The government’s Warm Homes Plan has allocated £2.7bn to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and an initial £2bn to zero and low-interest consumer finance. Grants for heat pumps in homes currently using oil or LPG have also been increased to £9,000.
Those commitments should eventually support demand, but the H1 results show that announced funding does not automatically create a steady installation pipeline. Timing gaps between schemes can quickly affect installers, manufacturers and trained workers.
The market is therefore splitting into two distinct tracks. Solar and batteries are being pulled by consumer economics, tariff innovation and a relatively simple sales proposition. Heat pumps remain much more dependent on coordinated grants, finance and building policy.
For industry, the encouraging development is that households increasingly see generation and storage as an integrated energy system. The warning is that electrifying heat, which is essential to cutting building emissions and gas dependence, has not yet achieved the same self-sustaining momentum.
