01/09/2026
There is a solar panel in most gardens in Britain, and nobody finds it confusing.
The little black square on top of a solar garden lamp is a solar cell. Daylight hits it, it produces an electrical charge, a small battery holds that charge, and the light comes on after dark.
A roof system is the same idea, in four steps.
Collect. Daylight energises the cells and they produce an electrical charge. Bright sun gives you more, and ordinary cloudy daylight still counts.
Convert. Panels make one type of electricity and your home runs on another, so a box called an inverter changes it over. A garden lamp skips this step, because its little bulb is happy either way.
Store. A home battery holds what you do not use in the day, ready for the evening. Same job as the little cell in the lamp, on a much bigger scale.
Sell it back. Anything left over goes to the grid, and under the Smart Export Guarantee your supplier pays you for every unit you export. You have to sign up to a SEG tariff first, because the payments are not automatic, and suppliers set their own rates so it is worth comparing them.
That is the whole thing. Nearly 1.7 million homes across the UK now have an installation on the roof, and every one of them is running the same four steps as the lamp by your front door.
At Heatforce, we install and maintain solar and battery systems across Wales and the border counties. If you want to know what your roof could realistically do, send us a message.
Sources: Energy Saving Trust, Ofgem, GOV.UK.
