About a fifth of UK households rent privately, and essentially none of them have been offered solar. The reason is structural rather than technical: a roof system is a permanent alteration to an asset the occupier does not own, paid for by someone who may move in eighteen months. No product survives that.
A balcony system inverts every part of that. It is removable, it is yours, and it costs a fraction of a roof install — so the sums work even over a short tenancy, and it goes in the car when you leave.
What you need before you buy anything
The landlord’s consent, in writing. Almost every tenancy agreement restricts alterations, and a bracket on a railing is an alteration. An email saying yes is enough; a verbal yes from a letting agent is not.
We will not ask you for a penny until you have it, and we will do the survey first so that what you are asking your landlord to approve is a specific, photographed installation rather than the general idea of solar panels. That distinction changes the answer more than anything else you can do.
Why landlords say yes more often than tenants expect
Because their three real worries all have good answers. They are worried about damage — the brackets clamp rather than drill wherever the railing allows, and anything else is agreed with them first. They are worried about dodgy electrics — the work is done by a qualified electrician and comes with a certificate they can file next to the EICR. And they are worried about being left with something at the end — it leaves with you, and the spur is disconnected and made good.
The full version of that conversation, including what to put in the email, is in getting your landlord to say yes.
Does it pay back before you move?
Not usually — and that is the honest answer rather than the sales one. At £1,380 fitted and somewhere between £60 and £110 a year depending on your bill and which way the balcony faces, simple payback lands in the mid-teens of years. That is longer than almost any tenancy.
What makes it work for a tenant is that the payback clock does not reset when you move. Everything else you do to a rented flat is a gift to the landlord. This is the one upgrade that stays yours — a twenty-five-year appliance that happens to live outside, not an improvement to a building you will leave.
It is yours, and moving it is yours too
Worth being straight about, because “it comes with you” can be read two ways. The system is your property from the day it is paid for. Taking it to the next flat is your call and at your cost — we are not a removals service, and we do not build a free relocation into a £1,380 price that would then have to carry it for everyone who never moves.
The commercial point is what you are not paying for. You already own the panels, the inverter and the brackets, and they do not wear out because you changed address. So a refit is a visit, not a purchase — the install line rather than the whole system. Compare that with a roof array, which you leave behind entirely and buy again from scratch, and the second move is where balcony solar stops looking like the compromise and starts looking like the sensible option.
You can do it yourself if you are handy — the brackets unbolt and the panels lift off. What you should not do yourself is the electrical side at either end.
If you would rather we handled it, taking it down is £100— the same visit rate as an out-of-warranty callout, because it is the same sort of job: an hour, no scaffolding, disconnect and make good.
Putting it back up at the new place is £450. Dearer than the £100 to take it down, and deliberately so — it is a full installation rather than a visit: the new railing surveyed, brackets mounted, cable run, connection made, tested, certified, and the network notified again.
So a move costs about £550 all in, against £1,380 to start from scratch — and you keep a system you have already paid for. That is the number to weigh, and it is why we would rather publish it than say “quoted on application”.
When the landlord is not the one deciding
Common in a block: the landlord owns the flat but not the external structure, so a balcony alteration is a factor or freeholder question. That is a redirection rather than a refusal, and the landlord is usually the right person to make the approach because they are the owner on the factor’s records. See leases, factors and shared buildings.
At the end of the tenancy
An hour’s work. Brackets off, panels off, electrician disconnects the spur and makes the connection point good. The balcony goes back to how it was and your deposit is not part of the conversation.