ECO4 solar panels: the scheme has ended — here's what that means

ECO4, the fourth phase of the Energy Company Obligation and the last route to genuinely free solar panels for eligible households in England, closed to new applications on 31 March 2026. This page explains what it was, what happens if you were already in the pipeline, and where the funding landscape goes next.

In one line: you can no longer apply for ECO4 solar panels — and any website or caller saying otherwise is out of date or misleading you. Run our 2026 eligibility check to see what is still available for your home.

What ECO4 actually was

The Energy Company Obligation placed a legal duty on large energy suppliers to fund efficiency improvements in low-income and fuel-poor households. ECO4, which ran from 2022 to 31 March 2026, took a "whole house" approach: rather than funding one measure, assessors designed packages — insulation, heating upgrades, ventilation, and in suitable homes solar PV — intended to lift the property at least two EPC bands.

That whole-house logic is why solar appeared under ECO4 at all. Panels were rarely the first measure; they were added where the fabric work alone could not reach the required band uplift, typically on electrically heated or off-gas homes. For the households that qualified — broadly, those on means-tested benefits in EPC D–G properties, plus some referred under council flexible-eligibility rules — the entire package, panels included, was funded. No loan, no roof lease, no catch.

The Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) ran alongside ECO4 for single insulation measures with looser eligibility. Both schemes ended on the same date.

Already approved before 31 March 2026?

Work that was approved and lodged before the deadline is still being delivered through 2026 — suppliers have a completion window for committed projects. If you had a survey and a signed agreement, your installation should proceed: chase the installer or the scheme administrator named on your paperwork rather than re-applying anywhere. If you only ever filled in an online enquiry form and never had a retrofit assessment, you were almost certainly never in the pipeline, whatever the follow-up emails imply.

What replaces ECO4

The government's stated successor framework is the Warm Homes Plan. Its shape in 2026: funding delivered substantially through local authorities (the Warm Homes: Local Grant route for low-income, poorly rated homes), continued social housing retrofit funding, and a future supplier obligation that has been signalled in principle but — at the time of writing — not finalised into a scheme you can apply to. We describe it as announced-but-evolving, and we update this site as the rules harden.

Meanwhile, the measures that never depended on ECO4 carry on working:

— The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 towards a heat pump for homeowners replacing fossil-fuel heating — the most valuable live grant in England.

— 0% VAT on energy-saving materials runs until 31 March 2027 and applies to solar panels and batteries on any domestic installation, no means test.

— The Smart Export Guarantee pays for every kilowatt-hour your panels export.

— Solar Together group-buying rounds cut the purchase price through council-organised bulk auctions.

If you would have qualified for ECO4

Households on means-tested benefits in EPC D–G homes — the core ECO4 group — should look first at their council. Warm Homes funding flows through local authorities, eligibility criteria are similar to ECO4's, and several councils also retain flexible-eligibility referral routes for households just outside the benefit criteria. Measures lean towards insulation and heating, but solar still features in some whole-house packages, particularly for electrically heated homes.

The practical problem is that every council moves at its own pace and publishes in its own way. That is the gap our eligibility checker tries to close: tell us tenure, heating, benefits and postcode, and we reply by email with the routes that are actually open where you live — or a straight "nothing free exists for you right now, here is the cheapest sensible way to buy".