Solar Together gets a lot of coverage as a way to go solar on the cheap. The idea is straightforward — councils group residents together so they can collectively negotiate a lower price from a single national installer. It sounds appealing. But having installed solar panels across Bristol and South Gloucestershire for years, we’ve seen a few things that make us hesitant to recommend it.
You get whatever system they’ve decided to fit
Group-buying schemes work by standardising as much as possible. That keeps costs down for the installer, but it also means the system isn’t really designed around your home. A good solar installation takes into account your roof’s orientation and pitch, how much electricity you actually use and when you use it, whether you want battery storage now or might want it later, and whether there are any quirks to your property that need thinking through. With Solar Together, a lot of that nuance goes out of the window. You get a system that works well enough for the average house — which may or may not be yours.
National installers don’t know your area
Solar Together works with large national contractors. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, but it does mean you’re unlikely to get someone who knows Bristol particularly well — the local grid connection points, the specific planning considerations in parts of South Gloucestershire, or the incentives that might be available to you. Local installers tend to have that knowledge built up over years of working in the area. It makes a real difference when something comes up that needs sorting quickly.
After-sales support can be harder to pin down
Once the installation is done, you want to know there’s someone you can actually call. With a local installer, that’s usually straightforward — we’re based nearby, we know your system, and if something needs attention we can get there. With a national contractor operating at scale, it’s more of a postcode lottery. Some customers are well looked after. Others find it hard to get a straight answer when something goes wrong. That’s not a risk we’d want to take with a system you’re expecting to run for 25 years.
The savings aren’t always what they seem
The headline pitch is that collective purchasing brings down the price. Sometimes it does. But the comparison isn’t always like-for-like — a quote from a local installer might include better-spec panels, a more carefully designed system, or aftercare that isn’t factored into the Solar Together price. It’s worth getting a couple of independent quotes before assuming the group scheme is cheaper.
Our view
Solar Together isn’t a scam — it’s a legitimate scheme and some people have had perfectly good experiences with it. But it’s not right for everyone, and we’d encourage anyone considering it to at least compare it against a quote from a local MCS-certified installer first. You might be surprised how competitive local pricing can be, and you’ll almost certainly get a more tailored system and better ongoing support.
