Green Energy Together (GET), an installer used by households under the Solar Together group-buying scheme, had its accreditations withdrawn by MCS and HIES in March 2023, after which the company went into administration1. The withdrawals and the administration are reported together, with no separate date given for the administration itself1.
Solar Together is a group-buying scheme that helps households in England and Wales obtain solar panels at lower cost, run by iChoosr, a private Dutch-owned company founded in 2008 and launched in the UK in 20121. To be approved by iChoosr, installers must be MCS-accredited and members of either HIES or the Renewable Energy Consumer Code (RECC)1. Losing accreditation therefore removes an installer from the scheme: a separate installer was removed from Solar Together in May 2025 after losing one of its accreditations, and entered liquidation a month later1. Deposits in that case were reportedly returned by the end of July 2025, but not before causing distress to participants1.
The consequences for households caught by the GET failure are described in general terms: households were left without deposits, or with unfinished or unaccredited installations1. The report does not give the number of households affected, the total value of deposits lost, or whether any money was recovered in the GET case; those details have not been reported1.
Solar Together's scale and reach are set out in the same account. According to iChoosr, the scheme has worked with more than 200 councils to get 276,000 solar panels installed on 300,000 households1. As of December 2025 it covered 217 of the 339 local authorities in England and Wales, fewer than two-thirds1. Each scheme typically stays open for two or three months, and proceeds only if enough households sign up, generally at least a few hundred, though this varies by location1. Participants pay a £150 deposit, deducted from the final bill once the system is installed and refunded in full if the job is cancelled before the roof survey1. The whole process, from signing up to switch-on, can take around nine months1.
The scheme has secured 20 to 30 per cent reductions in cost, according to the Greater London Authority1. Reported savings elsewhere include an average of £2,000 in Suffolk, a 32 per cent average discount in Essex in 2023, and discounts of 22 per cent, 34 per cent and 41 per cent across three West of England schemes in 2021, 2023 and 20251. Against that, the account notes that iChoosr's minimum efficiency requirement for solar panels is 18.1 per cent, against a market average of 22.6 per cent calculated from 110 panels, and that manufacturers of chosen panels must provide a minimum product warranty of 12 years1. Panels, inverters and mounting materials carry a product warranty of at least 10 years1.
"The MCS and HIES both withdrew GET's accreditations in March 2023, then the installer went into administration."
Why it matters for households
Accreditation is the mechanism that ties an installer to a consumer code and to the redress arrangements that sit behind it. When MCS and HIES withdrew GET's accreditations, that link was broken before the company failed, which is why households were left with unfinished or unaccredited installations rather than a route to redress through the scheme. The £150 deposit is small next to the cost of a system, but the account records that deposits were the visible loss in the comparable 2025 case, and that they took about two months to return1.
For a household, the practical exposure sits in two places: money paid before work starts, and the status of work already done. How much is at risk at each stage depends on the payment schedule agreed with the installer, and accreditation determines whether a warranty or guarantee survives the installer. The GET case shows both can fail at once, and that the failure can precede the administration rather than follow it1.
What happens next
No dated next steps are given for the GET case in the account, and no outcome for affected households is reported1. Separately, the account states that ECO4 is set to end on 31 December 2026, and that households in Great Britain submitting a successful application before then may be able to get a free solar panel system1.
Sources1 cited
- Solar Together: is it worth it? UK, 2026, sunsave.energy