Solar PV retrofit planning — every D–G home ripe for solar plus battery

Solar PV — photovoltaic — converts sunlight directly into electricity. The dominant UK install at around 4,040 MCS-certified contractors; typical job size £5,000–£12,000 for a 4–6 kWp domestic system. Solar thermal uses sunlight to heat water in a roof-mounted collector that feeds a hot-water cylinder. Niche today — under a few hundred UK installers — because the payback maths struggles against cheap mains gas and the kit competes with cylinder space needed for heat pumps. PV is the volume play, especially when paired with battery storage (around 1,790 MCS battery-certified UK installers). EPC Hunt surfaces roof-suitability data from the EPC where available; we do not yet integrate satellite-derived shading models, though that is on the roadmap for v1.5.

Roof-orientation data is on the EPC for around 60% of UK certificates issued since 2018 — the assessor records the predominant roof aspect. Filter EPC Hunt by roof orientation south, south-east or south-west to surface the highest solar-yield properties in your patch. A 5-mile radius around a typical English postcode returns 200 to 1,500 south-facing-roof rentals depending on density. The remaining 40% of properties have unrecorded orientation; we surface those too with an "unknown" flag so you can choose to include or exclude them. Future versions will overlay LIDAR-derived rooftop area and shading scores from public Environment Agency datasets — currently in scoping, not yet shipped.

Solar PV is not directly grant-funded for private homeowners or landlords in 2026 — the Boiler Upgrade Scheme covers heat pumps and biomass only, and the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) replaced the Feed-in Tariff in 2020 with a market-rate export buy-back rather than a grant. ECO4-funded solar exists for low-income households where solar is part of the recommended package, until ECO4 closes on 31 December 2026. The Warm Homes Plan is expected to fund some solar-plus-battery work but specific eligibility criteria are still being detailed by DESNZ. MCS certification remains required for any export-tariff or future grant eligibility, so the cert pays for itself even without direct grant flow today.

Yes — and the bundle is one of the strongest patterns we see. A heat pump increases a home's electricity demand significantly; pairing it with solar PV plus battery storage offsets a meaningful slice of that demand at the homeowner's marginal generation cost rather than retail tariff. Filter EPC Hunt by EPC band D-G, fuel type off-gas (oil, LPG, solid fuel) and roof orientation south-facing — that intersection is the cleanest bundle pipeline. Around 1,790 UK installers are MCS-certified for batteries alongside solar PV. Pro plan unlocks the recommendations-match filter that ranks properties by how many of your trades the property needs, so a heat-pump-plus-solar installer can sort by "needs both" first.