We get asked about Solar Together fairly regularly, so here’s our honest view. It’s a council-run group-buying scheme where homeowners register their interest, get pooled together, and a national installer is selected through a competitive tender process. The selling point is that buying in bulk brings the price down.
In theory, that’s a reasonable idea. In practice, there are some things worth thinking about before you sign up.
The tender process favours price over quality
Solar Together works by getting installers to bid for the contract. The system is designed to push prices down, which sounds great for the homeowner. But the way this works in practice is that the winning installer has already committed to tight margins before they’ve even seen your roof. Something has to give — and often it’s the time spent on a proper survey, the grade of panel used, or the care taken during installation.
Your system probably won’t be designed around your home
A solar installation that works well is one that’s been thought through properly. Roof orientation, pitch, shading from trees or neighbouring buildings, your typical electricity usage, whether battery storage makes sense for you — all of this matters. Our own case studies show how different the right answer can be from one property to the next.
With a group scheme, the emphasis is on processing a large number of installations efficiently. Detailed, property-specific design tends to get compressed into something more generic.
After-sales support can be harder to get hold of
Solar panels should last 25 years or more. Over that time, questions and issues will come up — an inverter fault, a change in how the system’s performing, a query about your export tariff. When you’ve got a local installer, you’ve got someone to call who knows your system, is a short drive away, and has an interest in keeping you happy. With a national contractor you met once during installation, that relationship is much harder to maintain. We hear this complaint from Solar Together customers fairly often. See what our own customers say on our reviews page.
The savings don’t always stack up
This is the big one. Solar Together presents itself as the cheaper option, but the comparison isn’t always straightforward. A quote from a local installer might include better panels, battery-ready wiring, a more detailed survey, or longer aftercare. When you compare like-for-like, the price gap often shrinks — and when you factor in longer-term performance, a better-specified system can more than pay for itself.
Our advice: get at least one independent quote before committing to Solar Together. You might find local isn’t as expensive as you expected.
At LA Electrical & Solar, we’re MCS-certified and based in Bristol. Get in touch for a free quote and we’ll give you a straightforward breakdown of what makes sense for your home.
