Key takeaways from Solar & Storage Live UK

<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Solar &amp; Storage Live UK 2025 took place over three days from September 23 to 25 at the NEC venue in the outskirts of Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city. <b>pv magazine</b> spoke to hundreds of industry players keen to optimize existing solar and storage capacity and be at the forefront of the nationwide rooftop PV expansion.</span></p><p>Most exhibitors <strong>pv magazine</strong> heard from at this year’s Solar & Storage Live UK trade show event in Birmingham said the 2025 event was bigger and busier than <a href="https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/10/01/key-takeaways-from-solar-storage-live-uk/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">its predecessor</a>.</p>
<p>More than 20,000 visitors walked through the exhibition that spanned an area of 40,000 m2 at the NEC. They shook hands, chatted with, and shared coffees, beers and market insights with more than 500 exhibitors.</p>
<p>The morning of the second day was when the action peaked and the crowd buzzed loudly, with the first day busy enough and the last day quietening down considerably as people cleared out, exhausted after two days of attending panel discussions, meeting peers and absorbing information about the UK's growing market.</p>
<p>Event organizer Terrapinn, supported by title sponsors GivEnergy and official partner Solar Energy UK, was clearly influenced by the UK government’s Solar Roadmap document.</p>
<p>Published in June 2025, this action plan is still very much on people’s minds and many of the panel sessions at this year's show focused on the roadmap’s key themes. Enhancing electricity networks, building out the supply chain, boosting skills, adding battery storage to solar deployments and increasing grid flexibility and reliability were all under the microscope across many of the stages.</p>
<p>Rooftop solar, one of the main themes of the Solar Roadmap, was explored in depth by speakers from the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the residential sector. Four theaters throughout the show floor covered residential, commercial and industrial solar, utility-scale solar, and energy storage.</p>
<p>The UK now has more than 22 GW of solar generation capacity online, on the way to reaching the Government’s target of 57 GW of solar power by 2030. Using available rooftop space will be crucial to this target.</p>
<p><strong>Cross-sector collaboration</strong></p>
<p>In his keynote speech on the first day of the event, Solar Energy UK’s CEO Chris Hewett said that although dependence on oil and gas is ending faster than previously thought, the global fossil fuel lobby is fighting back.</p>
<p>Hewett singled out what he described as “a growing movement of political parties across the world” that don’t want to support renewable energy initiatives. He added that the solar and energy storage sector is being drawn into a wider debate, with “malicious lies” being spread about renewables by key political figures both in the UK and abroad.</p>
<p>He appealed to the audience to “call the nonsense out” and take perceived threats against renewables seriously. He told those attending the show that most UK citizens want low electricity bills, investments and jobs in their communities, and they know this comes in the form of renewable energy. Several companies like SolarEdge and Longi teamed up to do training sessions for industry personnel in a section reserved for sharing skills and demonstrations.</p>
<p>The Solar Energy UK CEO finished his speech on a positive note, emphasizing the need for the solar and storage and electric vehicle industries to band together on renewable energy deployment across the UK. Cross-industry collaboration was indeed a major theme of this year’s show, with speakers and exhibitors alike from many of the events and stands <strong>pv magazine</strong> stopped by saying that a big picture view would be the difference between meeting or missing 2030 and 2050 energy targets.</p>
<p>This year, Solar & Storage Live UK was co-located with electric vehicle trade show EVCharge Live UK, expanding the exhibition to showcase the connection between solar, storage, and EV charging.</p>
<p>At the Solar Energy UK stand, exhibitors were spreading awareness of a recently launched market intelligence platform called SolarPulse, aimed at solar and battery energy storage project owners and investors, EPCs, and policymakers. The subscriber-only tool offers access to more than 5,000 utility-scale projects across the UK for an annual fee.</p>
<p><strong>Optimization, energy management, grid flexibility</strong></p>
<p>It’s not just utility-scale projects where market intelligence is needed. Energy management systems products for the residential market were everywhere this year, with companies such as EcoFlow and more displaying the latest innovations for homeowners and businesses to ensure their energy setups are as optimized as possible. UK company Levelise showed <strong>pv magazine</strong> how its new product Hub 2 can enable homeowners to earn money from participating in the flexibility market.</p>
<p>The word “optimization” was reverberating around the halls of the 2025 edition of UK Solar & Storage Live as industry players discussed the importance of making the most of renewable energy generation. Dutch battery and energy management services (EMS) company iwell’s country director for the UK, Mark Duxbury, foresees great demand for its solutions, particularly as asset owners opt for bespoke tech-led services. The company has an office in the UK’s growing technology hub in Oxford and Duxbury said its first UK deliveries will begin in early 2026.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, SolarEdge, which has a well-established presence in the UK market, was keen to showcase its extensive suite of inverters and batteries. The company’s UK head of commercial, Nick Blampied, told <strong>pv magazine</strong> that insurance companies are very interested in the safety and security of PV systems, with inverters a big part of this, particularly in the commercial storage space.</p>
<p>“I think the market’s going to be strong for storage in at least the next six months and with a lot of public sector grants being either awarded or tendered lately there appears to be good levels of interest for commercial storage. We expect to be able to deploy our batteries in a lot of educational facilities,” said Blampied.</p>
<p>He added that upcoming opportunities for smaller batteries to participate in the UK wholesale market could open up additional revenue streams for commercial systems outside of maximum self-consumption, arbitrage or peak shaving.</p>
<p>Among this year’s exhibitors, were Alpha ESS, Anker Solix, BYD, DAS Solar, EcoFlow, Fox ESS, GoodWe, Huawei, JA Solar, Jinko Solar, Longi, Sungrow, Tesla, Trina Solar and many more.</p>
<p>The date for next year’s Solar & Storage Live UK has already been <a href="https://www.terrapinn.com/exhibition/solar-storage-live/index.stm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">announced</a>, and will take place in the NEC in Birmingham from 22 to 24 September. Once again, Terrapinn is promising it will be a bigger event than in 2025.</p>