Weekly Solar Insights: The UK's VAT Cut Is Two Weeks Away, Germany's EEG Reform Hits the Bundesrat Deadline, and Italy's 50% Deduction Starts Its Countdown (Week of 14 September 2026)

October 9, 2026

Welcome back to Solar Insights, your weekly five-minute catch-up on the home-energy news that actually matters if you're weighing up solar for your own roof.

This week has an unusual flavour: all three of our markets are running a countdown at the same time. The UK has two weeks until VAT disappears from electricity bills. Germany has until 25 September for the upper house to comment on the biggest change to home-solar payments in twenty years. And Italy's homeowners now have fifteen weeks to get a system finished if they want this year's 50% deduction.

Here's what's happening, and - more usefully - what each one means for you.

United Kingdom: the cap goes up, but your electricity bill probably won't

Ofgem confirmed the October price cap last month, and it's a rise. From 1 October the cap rises by £60 a year, or about £5 a month, to £1,723 for a typical household using both gas and electricity^[1].

But look at where the increase lands, because this is the interesting bit. Almost all of it is gas. Under the new cap, gas bills are going up by around 8%, while households that don't use gas at all will see an increase of less than 1%^[2].

And then there's the VAT change. The government has removed VAT from household electricity bills from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, and without it the October figure would have been roughly £45 higher^[3]. The 5% VAT simply stops being charged on the electricity portion of your bill for six months.

What this means for you. If you're on a fixed tariff, you're not affected by the cap rise at all - but the VAT discount still reaches you, applied automatically by your supplier. You don't need to do anything.

If you already have solar, the picture is quietly good: your panels offset electricity, and electricity is the part of the bill staying flat. Meanwhile, export rates are worth a look. Right now the highest open-to-all export rate sits at around 12p per kWh, the best rate that doesn't require a battery is about 16.5p, and the eye-catching 27p headline deal comes with conditions attached - usually being that supplier's customer and having bought specific battery hardware from them.

Our honest read: the headline export numbers are seductive, but they're only worth chasing if the import rate that comes with them is competitive too. A brilliant export rate attached to an expensive import tariff can easily leave you worse off. Compare the pair, not the headline.

One caveat worth naming: the VAT removal is currently set to run to 31 March 2027. Whether it's extended is a question for a future Budget, so don't build a ten-year plan around it.

Germany: the EEG reform is now on parliament's desk

This is the big one, and it's moving.

The government's draft of the EEG 2027 reform was agreed by cabinet at the end of July, and it's now in the parliamentary process. Under the draft, the fixed feed-in tariff would stop for all new installations from 1 January 2027 and be replaced by a temporary transition payment of 5.2 cents per kWh for a maximum of 36 months^[4].

That's a genuine shift. The fixed 20-year tariff has been the backbone of German rooftop solar since 2000, and the proposal swaps certainty-for-two-decades for a smaller payment over three years.

Two important caveats. First, this is a draft, not law. The Bundesrat can submit its comments until 25 September, the Bundestag hasn't debated it yet, and the whole package still needs state-aid clearance from the European Commission. Things can change in all three of those places.

Second - and this is the part that matters most for anyone reading this in Germany - the rules only apply to systems commissioned from 2027 onwards. If your system goes live in 2026, you keep the fixed 20-year tariff under today's rules. Germany's feed-in rates stepped down by about 1% on 1 August^[5], which is the routine six-monthly adjustment, and a system registered now locks that rate in for two decades.

What this means for you. If you were already leaning towards solar and were planning to get it done "sometime next year", it's worth understanding that 2026 and 2027 are now genuinely different deals. We're not going to tell you to rush - a badly-planned system is a worse outcome than a slightly smaller tariff. But if you're close to deciding, getting quotes now rather than in February is a sensible move, because installer diaries tend to fill up when a deadline is visible to everyone at once.

And a reassurance: this reform doesn't touch existing systems. If your panels are already up, your tariff is your tariff.

Italy: the deduction clock, and life after Scambio sul Posto

Two things to know in Italy, one about money and one about how you get paid.

The 50% deduction. You can still deduct 50% of the cost of installing a solar system on your main home, on expenses incurred up to 31 December 2026, dropping to 36% for a second home, with a spending cap of €96,000 - and it's paid back to you as ten equal annual instalments, not as a lump sum. Fifteen weeks sounds like plenty, but the expense has to actually be incurred within the year, so it's a real deadline rather than a soft one.

Scambio sul Posto is closed to new systems. This has been true for a while now - net metering hasn't accepted new installations commissioned after 29 May 2025 - but it's still the single most common misunderstanding we hear from Italian readers. If a salesperson quotes you a payback based on Scambio sul Posto, they are quoting you an old scheme you cannot join.

What you can use instead: Ritiro Dedicato, where the GSE buys your surplus at set rates, or joining a Comunità Energetica Rinnovabile (renewable energy community), where your surplus is shared and rewarded locally.

What this means for you. The practical consequence of losing net metering is that self-consumption matters far more than it used to. Under the old scheme, sending power to the grid and taking it back later was nearly neutral. Now, every kilowatt-hour you use yourself is worth clearly more than one you export. That shifts the whole calculation - towards running the dishwasher at midday, towards a slightly smaller and better-matched system, and towards batteries making sense for more households than before.

Zooming out: Europe is still building, but homes have gone quiet

One piece of context worth having. According to figures published this month, the EU installed at least 33.8 GW of new solar between January and June 2026, about 1.9% more than the 33.2 GW added in the same months of 2025^[6].

Growth, then - but only just, and it isn't coming from rooftops. Residential demand softened in several European markets over the first half of the year, while large solar farms and business installations held up better.

What this means for you. Mostly it's good news at the kitchen-table level. Softer residential demand means installers have more availability and are more willing to compete on price than they were during the 2022-23 rush. If you get three quotes today, you are more likely to get three people who actually want the job.

The one-line summary for each country

UK: Your electricity unit rate is about to get slightly cheaper thanks to the VAT removal, even as the overall cap rises. Nothing to do - but do check your export tariff and its matching import rate.
Germany: Nothing has changed yet, and nothing changes for existing systems. If you're deciding, 2026 and 2027 are different deals, so bring your timeline forward if you were close anyway.
Italy: Fifteen weeks left on the 50% deduction, and ignore any quote that mentions Scambio sul Posto. Design around using your own power, not exporting it.

Before any of it matters: what could your roof actually do?

Every one of these stories changes a number in the same sum - what your panels generate, what you use yourself, and what you get paid for the rest. Which is why the most useful five minutes you can spend this week isn't reading policy news. It's finding out what your own roof would produce.

Our free Solar Roof Planner lets you type in your address, trace your roof on a satellite image, and get an honest estimate of how many panels fit, what they'd generate across a year, what you'd save, roughly how long payback would take, and whether a battery makes sense for you. No sign-up, no sales call, no one phoning you next Tuesday.

Then come back to the news with your own numbers in hand. It reads very differently that way.

See you next week.

Sources: Ofgem - energy price cap will rise by 4% from October 2026, Ofgem - changes to the energy price cap, October to December 2026, EGI Energy - VAT scrapped on electricity bills from October, Clean Energy Wire - government agrees to phase out fixed feed-in tariffs for new small solar PV, pv magazine - Germany reduces solar feed-in tariffs by 1%, pv magazine - EU deploys 33.8 GW of solar in H1, Uswitch - Smart Export Guarantee rates, September 2026, myenergy - detrazione 50% ristrutturazione fotovoltaico 2026.