Already bought

You have already got one. Who do you have to tell?

Somebody has to tell the company that owns the electricity cables in your street that the equipment is there. That somebody is you. Not the shop, not the courier, and not the manufacturer. It is free, it is usually one form, and it is the step people miss most often — partly because what you have to send differs depending on what you bought, and partly because nobody who took your money had any reason to mention it.

None of this says anything is wrong with what you bought. It applies to perfectly ordinary equipment, bought perfectly properly. It attaches to whoever owns the thing — which is now you.

First: work out who owns the cables in your street

This is not the company that bills you. That one sells you electricity and you can switch it whenever you like. The one you need here owns the physical cables and keeps them working. There is exactly one for your area, you did not choose it, and your bill will usually not name it. On their own forms they call themselves your distribution network operator, or DNO — worth knowing, because that is the phrase you will meet once you get there.

You can find yours by postcode in about ten seconds:

Find the company that owns your cables, by postcode →

Then: what to do, depending on what you bought

Plug-in solar

You have to tell them, and you can do it after the fact. Since 27 August 2026 you may plug a solar kit into an ordinary socket without waiting for anyone’s permission — but you still have to let the cable company know it is there once it is up. Nobody does this for you. Their own form is the one to use.

This only applies to a kit that meets all four conditions: solar panels, no more than 800 watts going into the house, no battery inside it, and an ordinary plug into an ordinary socket. If yours misses one of those, it is not faulty and it is not illegal — it just needed an electrician to fit it, and in that case the paperwork was theirs rather than yours. The law that changed is SI 2026/848.

Check whether yours is on the tested-equipment list →

Rooftop solar

Your installer does this one, not you — telling the cable company is part of the job and they cannot really finish without it. What you should do is ask them for the reference number afterwards and keep it somewhere safe. When you sell the house, the buyer’s solicitor will ask for it, and chasing an electrician you used six years ago is no fun.

The thing genuinely worth chasing is a certificate under a scheme called MCS, covering both the panels and the installer. This is not about safety, it is about money: without it, no electricity supplier will pay you for the power you generate and do not use. That payment scheme is called the Smart Export Guarantee. None of the plug-in rules apply to a rooftop system.

Home batteries

Whoever installed it tells the cable company, as part of the job. Ask them for the reference and keep it, same as with panels.

If you go looking for your battery on the tested-equipment list and cannot find it, do not worry: that list covers the box that connects a battery to the house and the grid, not the battery itself. Almost no batteries are on it, and that is normal.

The one thing genuinely worth doing is ringing your home insurer and getting an answer in writing. A lot of policies still say nothing at all about home batteries either way. That phone call costs you ten minutes now and potentially a great deal later.

Car chargers

There is nothing for you to do here. An ordinary charger only draws power in and never sends any back, so none of the rules above apply to it. It does have its own rules — the ones that make it default to charging off-peak and add a short random delay so the whole street does not switch on at once — but those are the manufacturer’s to follow, not yours.

It will not be on the tested-equipment list either, and that is not a mark against it. The list only covers equipment that pushes electricity back out to the grid. No ordinary charger, from any brand, appears on it.

The exception is the rarer two-way sort, which can send power from the car back into the house or the grid. Those do get tested, and whoever fits one tells the cable company about it.

Heat pumps

Nothing to tell the cable company. A heat pump only uses electricity; it never sends any back, so the rules above do not touch it. What matters instead is that whoever fitted it was certified under the MCS scheme — that is the condition attached to the £7,500 government grant — and that your electricity supply is big enough for it. We hold no list you can look a heat pump up in.

What the £7,500 grant actually requires →

Look yours up

If you have the model number, or the reference number that shows a device has been tested (something like UKSOL/21008/V1/A4), you can see what has been recorded about it. Do read what the list covers first: finding your plug-in solar kit on it means a great deal, and not finding your car charger on it means nothing whatsoever. Each page says which of those you are looking at before it shows you anything.

This is a description of what you have to do, not legal advice, and the cable company’s own form is the authority on what it wants. If you are not sure whether anyone ever told them about your equipment, just ask — they will look it up, and there is no penalty for asking.

Work out what fits instead