Kingston · Merton · Richmond · Sutton · Croydon · Wandsworth
Solar Panel Grants South West London: What You Can Actually Get
What exists across six South West London boroughs, which consortium handles each one, who each route is written for, and the VAT relief that applies to every home installation.
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Solar panel grants in South West London are real but narrow, and the route depends on the borough. A home in Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton or Wandsworth reaches the income-linked Warm Homes: Local Grant through the Greater London Authority; a home in Croydon reaches the same grant through a different consortium led by Portsmouth. Around those sit an energy company scheme that ends on 31 December 2026, a lower-interest government loan, a Richmond discount that is not a grant, a group-buy with no round open, and 0% VAT on every residential installation.
We install; we do not award grants. Home Comfort Enterprises (HCE) has no part in any of these schemes, and an eligibility decision belongs to the consortium, the council or the scheme. Each route below is described as its own source put it on 19 October 2026 unless we give another date. What an installation involves is on our main solar panels South West London page.
Quick answer
Solar panel grants in South West London, in short:
- No general grant pays for solar on an ordinary South West London home; the funded routes are income-linked and queued
- Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth are in the GLA-led Warm Homes: Local Grant consortium (£53,470,024); savings must be under £25,000
- Croydon is in the Portsmouth-led consortium (£34,807,254) instead, whose Warmer Homes scheme says it is oversubscribed
- Switch Together (formerly Solar Together) was not active in any of the six boroughs on 19 October 2026; no round dates are published
- Richmond Council’s £600 discount with one installer is a price reduction, not a grant; ECO4 runs until 31 December 2026
- 0% VAT applies to every residential solar panel and battery installation until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April 2027
Sources: Switch Together, GOV.UK, the GLA, Warmer Homes, Richmond, Croydon and Wandsworth councils, Ofgem and HMRC, read 19 October 2026.
Who South West London’s funded routes are written for
GOV.UK’s test for the Warm Homes: Local Grant is the same in all six boroughs: a home in England, privately owned by you or your landlord, with an EPC rating of D, E, F or G, and household income usually £36,000 a year or less unless the home is in a qualifying postcode or someone in it gets certain benefits. The GLA adds a rule of its own for the five boroughs it serves: household savings under £25,000, pensions not counted, with an exemption for households eligible for Pension Credit or on means-tested benefits. A landlord can get full funding for one eligible home and pays half the cost for any further ones.
Tenure narrows the field before income does. At the 2021 Census 11.0% of Kingston households, 12.1% in Richmond, 14.2% in Merton, 17.9% in Croydon and 19.3% in Wandsworth rented from a social landlord, and in Sutton’s St Helier West ward the share is 37.9%. Those homes are outside a test written for private property. Private renters can qualify through their landlord, which counts in Wandsworth, where 36.3% of households rent privately, and in Merton at 29.1%; in Sutton, by contrast, 64.4% of households own their home.
Solar Together in South West London: a group-buy, not a grant
This part of London was early to the Mayor’s group-buy. Merton and Sutton were among the boroughs named when the scheme expanded in June 2018, Kingston announced its partnership in February 2021, and Richmond’s 2021 round closed for registrations on 23 March 2021. Wandsworth’s 2021/22 progress report says direct letters and targeted social media raised its sign-ups. In every case the household paid for its system, at a price pooled across many homes. The GLA says Solar Together London is completing its fifth phase, with over 3,000 homes fitted, and that after one installation company failed some customers need help with a refund or an unfinished job.
Nothing is open now. The scheme trades as Switch Together, and on 19 October 2026 its pages for Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames, Sutton, Croydon and Wandsworth all said it was not active in the area and offered to notify residents when the next scheme launches. If a round does open, hold its offer against a survey quote for the same roof, line by line, as our guide to what is in a solar quote, line by line explains.
The Warm Homes: Local Grant in South West London, borough by borough
Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth. GOV.UK lists all five among the members of the Greater London Authority’s consortium, funded at £53,470,024, and the GLA delivers the grant for 31 local authorities. From year two, the GLA handles applications first come, first served within each borough, where year one ran a single London-wide queue. Each borough’s queue is capped at up to 250% of its allocation, later applications go on a waiting list, and a place in the queue does not guarantee funding. The GLA describes the improvements as fully or partly funded for eligible households, lists solar panels among them, and warns that high demand means longer waits.
Wandsworth is the one of the five whose own page we could read today. Its retrofit grants page lists the Warm Homes: Local Grant with solar panels among the upgrades. The page was last updated on 16 July 2025 and still lists the Great British Insulation Scheme, which closed on 31 March 2026, so treat it as a signpost and check GOV.UK for the current position. We found no Warm Homes: Local Grant page of their own for Kingston, Merton or Sutton, so households there start from the GLA’s grant page.
Croydon. GOV.UK lists Croydon in the consortium led by Portsmouth, funded at £34,807,254, alongside councils from Crawley to the Isle of Wight. Warmer Homes, that consortium’s scheme, includes Croydon among its partners and says it is oversubscribed: new applicants join a waiting list while it waits for a decision from DESNZ on further funding. The GLA’s queue rules and savings limit are not written for Croydon, so start from GOV.UK’s Warm Homes: Local Grant checker. Where funding is available, GOV.UK says the council will usually get in touch within 10 working days to arrange a survey.
ECO4, loans and borough offers for South West London homes
Ofgem says ECO4, the energy company scheme, runs until 31 December 2026 after a nine-month extension; like the grant, it is income-linked rather than a general offer. The government’s other route is the Warm Homes Loan Scheme, whose rules cap lending at £15,000 for solar PV and £15,000 for a battery and let the government pay lenders up to 20% of a loan to bring the interest rate down. It is borrowing you repay at a lower rate. We have not confirmed which lenders take part, so check GOV.UK.
Two boroughs have their own offers, and neither is a solar grant. Richmond Council has negotiated an automatic £600 discount for every borough resident on solar panels and batteries fitted by MakeMyHouseGreen, up from £500 in July 2026; it needs no income test, and it is a reduction on one company’s price. Croydon’s energy loans lend up to £6,000, with no interest charged, to homeowners who are over 60, have a disability or receive an income-related benefit, repaid when the property changes hands, but the council’s examples are boilers, central heating and loft insulation, not solar. Wandsworth households can read our guide to help paying for a battery in Tooting, which takes the same routes through one part of the borough.
Want a South West London quote to set beside any offer?
Grant, discount or neither, a no-obligation survey gives you an itemised written quote for your roof in Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton, Croydon or Wandsworth.
0% VAT and export payments on South West London installations
The VAT relief is the one saving with no application, queue or income test. Under HMRC VAT Notice 708/6, residential solar panels and batteries carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April 2027. It applies equally to a Richmond discounted job, a group-buy if one reopens and an independent quote, and our guide to VAT on solar panels and batteries covers what falls outside it.
Nor is the Smart Export Guarantee a grant: it pays for units you export, at rates set by each supplier and must be above zero — they change on short notice, which is why we never print one. What a South West London roof exports depends on what it makes and what the household uses in daylight: PVGIS puts an unshaded, due-south 4 kWp roof at about 3,980 kWh a year in Sutton and about 3,984 in Tooting. Export payments need an MCS-certified installation; HCE is MCS-certified for solar PV and battery storage, held via NAPIT (member 73495).
Grant offers in South West London: what to check first
If a doorstep caller, leaflet or advert promises “free solar panels” to a South West London home, read it as “no upfront cost for eligible households, with criteria”. The funded routes here are the Warm Homes: Local Grant, through the GLA’s consortium or, in Croydon, the Portsmouth-led one, and ECO4 until 31 December 2026. The GLA reports people asking Londoners for £300 to £1,500 to secure an application or to have solar panels fitted. Its position is that residents are never charged, by the GLA or its delivery partner, either to confirm eligibility or for the installation itself.
- Ask which consortium is paying. In this region there are two, and the answer tells you which rules apply.
- A queue place cannot be bought. Each GLA borough’s queue is first come, first served and capped, and Warmer Homes runs a waiting list; no installer can move you up either.
- A discount is not a grant. Richmond’s £600 comes off one company’s price, so compare the whole quote, not the reduction.
- Look the installer up. Ours are NAPIT (member 73495) and the HIES Consumer Code (HCE/A/1392), both searchable online.
What a South West London roof earns without a grant
For most households the sums start without a grant, and with the roof. At 4 kWp, 35° tilt, due south, 14% system losses, building-mounted, PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre) gives about 3,995 kWh a year in Wimbledon and about 3,977 in Croydon, the two ends of the 6 South West London town pages that print a figure. A 18 kWh gap between them (our arithmetic) means the borough barely matters; direction, pitch and the shade of a street tree or the next roofline decide it.
The Energy Saving Trust puts a typical 4.5 kWp system of around 12 panels at around £7,600 installed. That is a national figure, not our price; how it moves for a terrace, a semi or a flat here is on solar panel cost in South West London, with the national breakdown on solar panel installation cost. With 85 conservation areas in Richmond and an Article 4 direction naming solar in Croydon’s Chatsworth Road, our guide to planning permission for solar panels in South West London is worth reading before a survey. Town pages: Richmond, Twickenham, Mitcham, Carshalton and Croydon. The batteries in our own job photos are EnSmart, and battery storage explains how one is sized.
Sources: Switch Together, six borough pages, read 19 October 2026 · GOV.UK: grant allocations (updated 2 July 2026), apply page, Warm Homes Loan Scheme rules · Greater London Authority: Warm Homes: Local Grant, Solar Together London · Warmer Homes, consortium home page · Richmond Council: energy efficiency at home, news, 6 July 2026 · Croydon Council, Croydon energy loans · Wandsworth Council, Retrofit grants and funding (updated 16 July 2025) · Ofgem: ECO, Smart Export Guarantee · HMRC, VAT Notice 708/6 · ONS, Census 2021 TS054 Tenure (Nomis) · European Commission JRC, PVGIS · Energy Saving Trust, solar costs. Read 19 October 2026 unless dated. Census figures are ONS Census 2021 via Nomis, as cited on our town pages; Solar Together history from the Merton, Sutton, Kingston, Richmond and Tooting town pages’ cited council sources.
Solar panel grants in South West London: your questions
Are "free solar panels" offers in South West London genuine?
Only when they turn out to be an income-linked scheme with eligibility rules. In Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth that means the Warm Homes: Local Grant through the Greater London Authority's consortium, in Croydon the same grant through the Portsmouth-led consortium, and everywhere ECO4 until 31 December 2026. The GLA says people have approached Londoners asking for £300 to £1,500 to secure an application or arrange solar panels, and that neither it nor its delivery partner will ever ask for a fee. An offer that does not ask about income, savings and your EPC rating is a sales pitch.
Is Solar Together open in Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton, Croydon or Wandsworth?
No. Solar Together now trades as Switch Together, and on 19 October 2026 its pages for all six boroughs said it was not active in the area and asked residents to register for the next scheme. No round dates are published. It is a group-buy: the household pays for the system at a pooled price, so it is not a grant even when a round is open.
Why does Croydon handle the Warm Homes: Local Grant differently?
Because it is in a different consortium. GOV.UK lists Croydon among the members of the consortium led by Portsmouth (£34,807,254), not the Greater London Authority's (£53,470,024). Warmer Homes, the Portsmouth-led consortium's scheme, lists Croydon among its partners and says it is oversubscribed, with new applicants added to a waiting list. The GLA's London-wide queue rules and £25,000 savings limit are written for its own members, so a Croydon household should start from GOV.UK's checker rather than the GLA's form.
Is Richmond’s £600 solar discount a grant?
No. Richmond Council says it has negotiated an automatic £600 discount for all borough residents on a solar installation through MakeMyHouseGreen, raised from £500 in July 2026. It comes off that one company's price, with no income test, so the useful comparison is its discounted quote against an independent quote for the same panels, inverter, battery and warranty.
I rent from the council in St Helier or Tooting. Can I apply for the grant?
Not for this one. GOV.UK's test is a home privately owned by you or your landlord, so council and housing-association homes sit outside it. That matters locally: 37.9% of households in Sutton's St Helier West ward rent socially, 29.3% from the council (Census 2021), and 19.3% do across Wandsworth. The question for those homes is for the landlord.
Get a straight answer for your South West London home
Tell us your postcode and share a recent electricity bill. We will say honestly whether panels make sense on your roof with no grant at all, and put the price in an itemised written quote. If your household looks likely to meet the Warm Homes: Local Grant test, through either consortium, we will point you there before we quote. Call 0204 547 1892 or use the form.
Also see: solar panels across South West London · solar panel cost in South West London · planning permission in South West London