We get asked this fairly often. Someone has heard there is a better solar panel coming out soon, maybe next year, and wonders whether to hold off until then. It is a fair question. Nobody wants to buy today and feel they bought the old model. But our answer is almost always no, do not wait. In this post I will explain why, walk through the simple maths of waiting, and show you why the best time to fit solar panels is now.
The short answer
Fit the best, or a decent, panel you can get today, and it starts producing electricity straight away. That is the whole point. A panel sitting on your roof making power beats a slightly better panel that does not exist yet.
Solar panels improve, but slowly and in small steps. The gain from waiting a year is usually a few tens of watts per panel. That is not enough to make up for a year of lost generation.
The maths of waiting
Let me put numbers on it, because this is where it becomes clear.
Say you fit panels now. A typical UK south facing 465 watt panel produces roughly 465 kWh per year. So a year of production from your roof is a real, useful amount of electricity. That power lowers your bill from day one.
Now say you wait a year for a panel that is, for example, 40 watts better. Here is what happens:
- You lose a full year of generation while you wait. That is electricity you never make and savings you never see.
- The new panel is only slightly more efficient, maybe a handful of percent.
- It will take a very long time for that small efficiency gain to catch up with the year of free production you skipped.
In other words, you give up a whole year of output to gain a tiny bit more each year afterwards. The sums do not add up in favour of waiting.
Why panels improve slowly
There is no big leap coming that will make today’s panels look obsolete. Improvements in solar are steady and incremental.
Look at the trajectory over time:
- 15 years ago, a common panel was around 275 watts.
- Today, a strong domestic panel like the JA Solar all black is 465 watts.
That is real progress, but it has taken 15 years and happened in small steps. Next year’s panel will be a little better than this year’s, not transformed. So there is always a “better” panel on the horizon. If you wait for it, you wait forever, and you generate nothing in the meantime.
What you give up by waiting
It helps to be clear about what a year of delay actually costs you:
- A year of savings: every unit your panels would have made is a unit you instead buy from the grid at full price.
- A year of export income: spare power you would have sold back through the Smart Export Guarantee, gone.
- A year closer to payback: the system pays for itself faster the sooner it starts. Delay pushes that finish line back.
None of that comes back. You cannot generate last year’s sunshine.
The energy you do not buy is the real win
People focus on the panel spec, but the bigger picture is the electricity you stop buying. Once your system is live, you draw on your own power first and only top up from the grid.
A small efficiency gain on a panel you fit next year does almost nothing next to a full year of not buying expensive grid electricity this year. The sooner you start, the sooner that benefit kicks in.
It is worth remembering how the savings stack up too. Power you use yourself, called self consumption, is the most valuable, because it replaces electricity you would otherwise buy at the full day rate. Add a battery and you can store your daytime solar for the evening, or even charge overnight on a cheap rate, so you use almost everything your panels make. Every year you delay is a year you miss all of that, not just a year of slightly lower panel output.
A better panel does not help an empty roof
There is a simple way to think about it. A panel only does anything once it is on your roof and connected. The best specification in the world is worth nothing while it is still a press release.
A decent panel fitted today is generating, saving and earning. A better panel that arrives next year is doing none of those things for you right now. By the time it lands, your roof has already banked a full year of free electricity. That head start is very hard for a slightly better panel to claw back.
When might waiting make sense?
To be straight, there are a few reasons to pause, but none of them is “a better panel is coming”:
- You are about to have major roof work done. Fit the solar after, not before.
- Your roof needs repair first. Sort the roof, then add panels.
- You genuinely cannot proceed yet for budget or planning reasons.
Those are practical reasons. Waiting purely on the promise of a slightly better panel is not one of them, because that better panel is always a year away.
The bottom line
Do not wait for next year’s panel. The improvement is small and slow, while the cost of waiting is a full year of generation, savings and export income you never get back. Fit a decent panel now and it starts paying you from day one. The best time to fit solar panels is, quite literally, now.
We design and install solar and battery systems across Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, in places like Spaldwick, Brampton, Huntingdon and St Neots. If you are ready to stop waiting and start saving, call the office on 01480 400607 or request a survey through our website.
Jason Pope
Owner, Selec Group