We’ve been awarded £2 million by the government

We’re excited to reveal that the government has awarded us £2M through its Green Home Finance Accelerator initiative.

This will support the launch of Sunsave Plus, the UK’s first solar subscription, and aid our mission of making solar power accessible to all UK households.

This unique proposition for UK customers will tackle the initial cost of going solar, which is the main barrier to households adopting the energy bill-cutting technology.

The average solar panel system costs £10,270, and half of UK households have under £5,000 in savings – so we offer subscriptions that allow you to start saving on your energy bills immediately, without having to pay anything upfront.

With Sunsave Plus, you’ll receive the best-in-class kit, all in one easy package that comes with a 20-year Sunsave Guarantee. Your installation will work seamlessly, look excellent, and save you money from day one.

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What’s the Green Home Finance Accelerator?

The Green Home Finance Accelerator (GHFA) is a £20M government scheme established by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, as part of its £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.

It funds companies in their efforts to create finance initiatives that help UK customers to make their homes more energy-efficient, and transition to low-carbon sources for heating and electricity.

This £2M GHFA grant isn’t the first we’ve received from the government.

Last year, we were given £196,000 as part of the GHFA Discovery Phase. This went towards researching the solar subscription model and its major roadblocks, which helped us figure out how these issues can be solved with an innovative product that we can scale rapidly.

What are people saying?

Lord Callanan, the government’s Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, said that “these innovative projects will allow more families to save money and cut emissions.

“We are always looking to test progressive ways to make energy saving measures more accessible and affordable, allowing people to make their homes greener and warmer.”

Emma Harvey-Smith, from the Green Finance Institute, said: “Delivering a range of innovative and affordable financing solutions will help homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient, lowering bills and reducing emissions.

“Developing and piloting new green finance mechanisms to ensure they successfully support as wide a range of customers as possible, and unlock barriers to retrofit, will enable more energy efficiency home upgrades at pace and scale.”

And Alick Dru, co-founder of Sunsave, said: “We’ve worked closely with installers, manufacturers, distributors, energy suppliers, grid aggregators, regulators and funders to create our subscription model which aims to overcome the main barrier to solar adoption in the UK: the high upfront cost of solar.

“Now, thanks to our investors and the GHFA grant, we’re ready to officially launch our service which could save a typical family household £45 a month.”

Who’s funded us so far?

As well as the latest backing from the government, we’ve attracted millions of pounds of funding from a host of prestigious investors.

In total, we’ve received more than £11.2M in the two years since Sunsave was founded, from backers including:

The UK government
Norrsken, a top impact venture capital fund
Plug and Play (previously invested in Paypal and Dropbox)
IPGL (previously invested in Elvie and FootBalance)
Stuart Rose, Chairman of Asda
Michael Spencer, founder of Nex Group/ICAP
Roland Rudd, Founder of Finsbury
Bill Nussey, author of Freeing Energy

You can read more about our GHFA grant in The Telegraph and Energy Live News.

Who’s regulating us?

We’re authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide solar panels and batteries on a subscription model.

We’ve also worked very closely with the FCA to create Sunsave Plus in line with its new Consumer Duty guidelines, which vigorously target good customer outcomes.

The FCA has stringently analysed our procedures to ensure everything we do has the consumer’s interests at heart and is built to last.

We're here for good

With our healthy backing from leading venture capital funds and the government, our FCA approval, our world-class team, and our industry accreditations, we’re here for the long term.

We’ve made sure to get every relevant stamp of approval from the industry, to ensure customers can buy our products without worrying.

Firstly, we’re a Which? Trusted Trader, which means the independent experts at consumer advice service Which? put us to the test and found we’re a company you can trust.

We’ve also got accreditations from the MCS, EPVS, HIES, NAPIT, and TrustMark. If you can think of a relevant accreditation, we’ve got it.

To explain just a few:

Our MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme) accreditation means our installations are of the highest quality
Our EPVS (Energy Performance Validation Scheme) accreditation means all of our calculations and estimates have been checked and approved, and
Our HIES (Home Insulation & Energy Systems Quality Assured Contractors Scheme) accreditation means your deposit is protected and your workmanship guarantee is upheld

What next?

This will help us along the path to achieving our mission to make solar accessible for everyone, and the next step is to launch Sunsave Plus in the next couple of weeks.

If you’d love to go solar but have always previously been put off by the costs, Sunsave Plus could help. Check out our Sunsave Plus page to find out more and join the waitlist, and we’ll let you know when it’s ready – which will be very soon.

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Written byJosh Jackman

Josh has written about the rapid rise of home solar for the past five years. His data-driven work has been featured in United Nations and World Health Organisation documents, as well as publications including The Eco Experts, Financial Times, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Times, and The Sun. Josh has also been interviewed as a renewables expert on BBC One’s Rip-Off Britain, ITV1’s Tonight show, and BBC Radio 4 and 5.