Is My Solar Installer MCS Certified? How to Check

Almost every UK solar installer’s website says “MCS certified” somewhere on the homepage. Most of the time that’s true. But the claim itself isn’t proof, and it takes about two minutes to check properly rather than take it on trust.

What MCS certification actually is

MCS (the Microgeneration Certification Scheme) is the UK’s official quality standard for small-scale renewable installations: solar PV, battery storage, heat pumps and a few others. An installer doesn’t get MCS certified once and keep the badge forever, they’re assessed against a technical standard, audited, and have to stay current. Certification is held by the company, not by an individual fitter, and it’s usually issued through a certification body like NAPIT or NICEIC rather than by MCS directly, which is why certificate numbers often start with prefixes like NAP or NIC.

Why it matters for your quote

Two concrete reasons, not just a box-ticking exercise:

• The Smart Export Guarantee requires it. You can’t get paid for the electricity you export to the grid unless the system was installed by an MCS-certified installer using MCS-certified equipment. An uncertified install can still work perfectly well, it just permanently locks you out of export payments.
• It’s your baseline for workmanship standards. MCS certification means the installer has been independently assessed against a published technical standard, not just self-declared competence. It’s not a guarantee of a good job, but it’s the minimum bar worth checking before anyone touches your roof.

How to check any installer yourself

1. Go to the MCS “Find an Installer” tool at mcscertified.com/find-an-installer.
2. Search by company name or postcode.
3. Confirm the technology you actually want (solar PV, battery storage) shows against their listing, some installers are certified for one and not the other.
4. If you have a specific certificate number from their website or a quote document, you can cross-check it directly rather than relying on a name search.

If a company doesn’t turn up at all, that’s worth asking them about directly before you book anything, not after.

What we do about it

This is one of the checks we run as part of vetting who goes on our comparison list. It’s a five-minute job per installer and it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to skip when you’re building out a comparison list quickly, so it’s not one we skip.

Get matched with vetted installers to compare quotes from installers we’ve actually checked, or see our solar cost and payback guide for the wider numbers.

Frequently asked questions