210,000 Installs in Six Months: What the Solar Boom Means for Your Exmouth Roof
Walk down any road in Withycombe or Littleham and count the roofs with panels on them. Ten years ago you'd have found a handful. The Microgeneration Certification Scheme says there were 210,000 certified installations across the UK in the first half of 2026, 17% up on the previous best opening half-year. That works out at one every 74 seconds.
Nearly 150,000 of those were solar. And here's the bit that matters for anyone with panels already: 36,000 were battery storage, almost double the same period last year, and almost all went into homes that already had solar. People have worked out that the cheapest unit is the one you made at noon and used at seven in the evening.
So how do you go about it on a roof in Exmouth, Lympstone or Budleigh Salterton? Start with the roof itself. Panels sit for 25 years, so a tired covering of cracked slates or perished felt wants sorting first, otherwise you're paying for scaffold twice. Then think about the aspect. South facing is best, but east-west splits work well with a household that's out in the day and home in the evening. A 4kW array of ten or so panels is a common domestic size, though the right size depends on how you use power, not on what's cheapest.
Shading matters more than people think. A chimney stack or a neighbour's sycamore can drag down a whole string, which is why optimisers such as SolarEdge are popular on awkward roofs. Make sure the installer is MCS certified, because that's what lets you sell surplus back through the Smart Export Guarantee, and ask about the G98 or G99 notification to the distribution network operator. If a battery is on the cards, make sure the inverter is battery-ready from the start.
Solar Synergy, part of Lawsons Electrical Limited, install roof and ground mounted solar for homes and businesses across the South West. Have a chat with the engineers at Solar Synergy about solar panels in Exmouth, and get a proper survey of your roof before you decide.
