How to choose a solar panel installer in West Sussex: six checks before you sign

Searching for solar panel installers in West Sussex brings up directories, national brands, a council scheme or two and a long tail of local firms, ours included. Rather than tell you to pick us, here are the six things we would check before signing with anyone, including us.

1. The certification that makes the export payment possible

If you want to be paid for the electricity you export, the Smart Export Guarantee is the route, and Ofgem’s guidance is that for systems up to 50 kW the supplier asks for MCS certification, or an equivalent, covering both the installation and the installer. Ask to see it before the equipment conversation starts. Without it, the supplier is not obliged to pay you anything for what you send out.

2. The electrical registration for the circuit

A solar system is an electrical installation first. Someone has to sign the certificate for the new circuit, and it should be the firm that fitted it, not a subcontractor you never meet. We are the electricians as well as the installers, registered with the NICEIC, and the certificate is ours. Whoever you choose, ask who signs.

3. Who tells the network operator, and which one

Every inverter has to be notified to the electricity network operator before it is switched on. West Sussex has two: UK Power Networks across most of the county, from Horsham and Burgess Hill down to Worthing and Brighton, and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks towards Chichester, Bognor Regis, Billingshurst and Petworth. The MPAN on your bill says which. The industry code sets the threshold at 16 amps per phase, 3.68 kW: up to that is a G98 notification, above it a G99 application must be approved first. The installer does this. If a quote is silent on it, ask.

4. The scaffold, in the quote

Scaffold is the largest cost after the equipment on most West Sussex jobs, and it is the item most often left out of a headline price. Ours is always in. A two-storey terrace in Worthing, a flint cottage in Steyning and a bungalow in Rustington are three different scaffolds, which is one more reason a price given before a survey is not a price.

5. The paperwork you get at handover

Expect, at minimum: the electrical installation certificate, the commissioning record, the network notification acknowledgement, and the manufacturer registrations for the panels, inverter and any battery in your name with the warranty terms for the exact configuration fitted. Since April 2026 the wiring regulations also require batteries in homes to be installed to PAS 63100, the fire-safety specification for domestic battery systems, so ask where the battery is going and why that location complies. If the quote is for an integrated stack, the same applies with one more question — who commissions the energy-management layer — and our Sigenergy installer page sets out what the answer should be.

6. A photograph of their own work

It is the cheapest test there is. Manufacturer renders, stock libraries and logo walls are available to anyone with a card. A photograph of the firm’s own install, on a real Sussex roof, is not. Our pages carry ours, and we will tell you whose job each one was if you ask at the survey.

And one thing to hold a quote against

The Energy Saving Trust’s solar advice page, read in October 2026, puts the cost of an average home solar system at around £7,600, describes a 4.5 kWp system as typically twelve panels covering 20 to 30 square metres, and publishes a payback table by city based on July 2026 fuel prices. That is the centre of the range, not a price for your roof. A quote far below it deserves the question “what has been left out”, and one far above it the question “what is in here that I did not ask for”.

Our own page for solar panel installers in West Sussex goes through where we work, the three roof coverings that decide most jobs, the planning position and the two network operators. The survey is free and comes with nothing to sign.