14th November 2026
Britain is experiencing a rapid expansion in solar power. More households, businesses and public buildings are installing panels, encouraged by falling equipment costs, concerns about electricity prices and the desire to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
At first glance, this is an entirely positive development. Households can generate some of their own electricity, reduce their bills and even sell surplus power back to the grid.
But there is an important question that receives considerably less attention. What happens to the cost of maintaining Britain's electricity network when increasing numbers of consumers generate their own electricity and buy less from their suppliers?
There is a possible warning from Pakistan, where the rapid growth of solar power is already creating difficulties for the traditional electricity system.
Pakistan's solar revolution
Pakistan has experienced an extraordinary expansion in rooftop solar. Faced with expensive electricity, unreliable supplies and falling prices for imported solar panels, households and businesses have increasingly decided to generate their own power.
Research published in November 2026 in the journal Energy Research and Social Science found that solar's contribution to Pakistan's grid electricity generation increased from approximately 2% in 2019 to 22.5% in 2025. By the first quarter of 2026, it had reached 32.3%.
The expansion has been particularly significant because it has involved not just wealthy households installing panels but businesses and consumers seeking an alternative to expensive and sometimes unreliable electricity supplies.
However, the consequences for electricity companies are becoming apparent.
Electricity networks have substantial fixed costs. Power stations, transmission lines, substations and local distribution networks must still be maintained, even when customers purchase fewer units of electricity.
When large numbers of customers reduce their dependence on the grid, electricity companies can lose revenue while many of their underlying costs remain.
Those costs do not simply disappear. They must eventually be recovered from the remaining customers or through changes to the charging arrangements.
Pakistan has already moved to change the financial arrangements for customers exporting surplus electricity, reducing the attractiveness of some existing net-metering agreements.
The result illustrates a potential problem: those who can afford to invest in solar and batteries can protect themselves against rising electricity prices, while those who cannot afford the investment remain dependent on the grid.
Britain is following a similar path
The UK is not Pakistan. Our electricity system is more reliable, our regulatory arrangements are different and we have a different mix of electricity generation.
Nevertheless, the underlying economic question is relevant.
Government figures show that 269,000 solar installations were completed in 2025, the highest annual total recorded at that time and 37% more than in 2024.
The expansion continued during 2026. Nearly 172,000 installations had been fitted during the first seven months of the year, with rooftop systems accounting for more than seven out of ten installations in July.
The Climate Change Committee reported that Britain's total solar capacity reached 21.7 gigawatts at the end of 2025. The Government wants to increase this substantially by 2030.
Solar panels are increasingly being combined with domestic batteries. This makes an important difference because electricity generated during daylight hours can be stored and used in the evening.
A household with panels and a suitably sized battery can substantially reduce the amount of electricity it needs to purchase from its supplier.
Some households will still need the grid during periods of poor weather or unusually high demand, but their annual purchases can be considerably lower.
This raises the question of how the costs of maintaining the electricity network should be shared.
Two households, two very different experiences
Consider two neighbouring households.
The first has sufficient savings to invest in solar panels and battery storage. It generates much of its own electricity, uses stored power in the evening and buys relatively little from its electricity supplier.
The second household cannot afford the investment. Perhaps it is renting, living in a flat or simply has insufficient savings to spend several thousand pounds on renewable technology.
It continues buying practically all its electricity from the grid.
Both households still expect electricity to be available whenever they need it. Both depend on the same national infrastructure, but their electricity bills may look very different.
The difficulty is that a substantial part of the electricity system's costs does not disappear when consumption falls.
Ofgem's electricity price cap figures for the second quarter of 2026 put network infrastructure costs at approximately £214, or 23% of a typical annual electricity bill.
These charges pay for maintaining and upgrading the transmission and distribution networks.
Britain also faces considerable new investment requirements as it connects offshore wind farms, expands electricity transmission capacity and accommodates electric vehicles, heat pumps and new industrial demand.
The more electricity that is generated in different locations, the more important it becomes to have a network capable of moving power around the country.
Consequently, the growth of solar does not necessarily reduce the need for investment in the national grid.
Could bills become increasingly unfair?
This is where the debate becomes particularly important.
Britain already has standing charges, which help recover fixed costs regardless of how much electricity a household consumes. Network charges are recovered through a combination of standing charges and unit rates.
This means the UK has some protection against precisely the problem emerging in Pakistan.
However, it does not remove the underlying issue.
If more households generate their own electricity and reduce the number of units they purchase, recovering too much of the system's costs through consumption-based charges could leave a smaller number of grid-dependent customers carrying a disproportionate share.
On the other hand, increasing standing charges to recover more fixed costs could penalise households on low incomes, pensioners and people who use relatively little electricity.
There is no easy answer.
Charging households with solar panels more simply because they generate their own electricity could also discourage investment in renewable energy.
The challenge is to find a system that recognises the benefits of generating electricity locally while ensuring that everyone makes a fair contribution towards the infrastructure they continue to rely upon.
The danger of creating a two-tier energy system
There is a wider social issue here.
Homeowners with suitable roofs, access to finance and sufficient savings are best placed to benefit from the solar revolution.
Tenants, people living in flats and households struggling with everyday expenses are less likely to have the same opportunities.
Unless community solar schemes and other shared arrangements become more widely available, the benefits could become concentrated among those already in a stronger financial position.
The transition to renewable energy could therefore create a new divide between households that can substantially reduce their dependence on electricity suppliers and those that cannot.
This is not an argument against solar power. Quite the opposite. Generating more electricity from renewable sources is an important part of Britain's energy future.
But the financial arrangements need to keep pace with the technology.
A question for Ofgem and the Government
Britain should be examining the experience of Pakistan before similar pressures become more pronounced here.
Ofgem and the Government need to consider how the costs of maintaining the electricity network should be distributed as domestic generation and battery storage become increasingly common.
Should more of the costs be recovered through standing charges? Should charges reflect the times when households use the grid and the demands they place upon it? Could community energy schemes help ensure that people unable to install their own panels share in the benefits?
These are questions that need proper consideration.
The solar revolution is changing the relationship between households and electricity suppliers. The traditional model, in which almost everyone purchases their electricity from a centralised system, is gradually giving way to something more complicated.
The important question is whether Britain is preparing for that change, or whether it will eventually discover that the people who cannot afford solar panels are being left to pay an increasing share of the bill for everyone else.