- The UK’s Fuse Energy has announced a plug-in solar product
- It combines solar panels with a 2.5kWh plug-in battery
- It’s due on sale next year, provided plug-in batteries are made legal
With energy prices soaring thanks to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, you might be looking to plug-in solar panels to help cut your bills. To that end, the UK’s Fuse Energy has just announced the country’s first plug-in solar panels that come with an included battery, so you can harvest your own energy and store it for when it’s needed most — though the combination isn't yet legal in the UK.
The Jules by Fuse scheme lets you plug up to four 500W solar panels into a standard socket and use them to collect solar energy. This can be stored in the included 2.5kWh battery, with the Fuse app deciding when to store power and when to start using it from the battery.
Fuse frames the device as a handy product for people who a renting, living in an apartment or whose house roof is not suitable for solar panels. Instead of requiring scaffolding and a suitable home structure, the panels and battery can be placed on a balcony, mounted on a wall or placed in a garden.
That means accessing solar energy and storing it at home need not be limited to homeowners living in properties with suitable roof spaces. That said, there is a catch to be aware of with Fuse’s new initiative.
Waiting to clear the legal hurdle
As we noted earlier, you can’t get one of Fuse’s Jules setups installed today, as they’re not technically legal in the UK yet. Fuse says that the first deliveries of the product are “expected post legislation approval in 2027,” so if you’re interested, all you can do for now is pre-order one using Fuse’s waitlist.
Once the relevant legislation is passed and the Jules does become available, Fuse says it will cost £577 and will save you around £180 a year in electricity bills, meaning it’ll be paid off in a little over three years. In contrast, Fuse says that standard rooftop solar panels can set you back between £7,000 and £8,000, plus scaffolding and installation costs.
The big difference with plug-in solar kits — which only became legal in the UK in August 2026 — is Fuse’s inclusion of a battery in its Jules setup. This can make a real difference because it lets you power your house using the energy you’ve collected even when the sun isn’t shining, keeping you juiced up in all conditions.
Rival provider Octopus Energy is planning similar home battery products called the Nook Cube (2kWh) and Nook Colossus (5kWh or 10kWh, expandable to 30kWh) — also due to launch in 2027. Octopus’s own plug-in solar panels have repeatedly sold out since going on sale, although they don’t come with their own batteries.
While we’re waiting for battery legislation to pass, it’s a good idea to read up on the existing rules surrounding solar batteries and panels, as they’re not as simple as you might think. Hopefully things will become clearer next year, when the likes of Fuse and Octopus are confident that plug-in batteries will have passed the legal hurdles in their way.
Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.