Scotland writes its own planning law and runs two distribution networks. Three of the things you will read elsewhere are simply wrong up here, and one of them is wrong in your favour.
The Scottish guidance not mentioning plug-in solar is not the same as Scotland approving it. It means the English prohibition introduced in August 2026 has no Scottish equivalent, and that general solar permitted development applies. If your case turns on a timber balcony, ask your planning authority rather than relying on an absence.
This is the practical difference between the two jurisdictions, and it lands exactly where plug-in solar lives.
A plug-in panel is rarely flush. It sits on a frame, angled away from the wall, because the angle is most of what decides the output. In England a frame on a wall away from a highway has 400 millimetres to play with, and 200 millimetres if that wall faces a road.
Under Class 6HA, Scotland allows up to a metre. That is enough to tilt a panel properly against a vertical wall instead of flattening it against one, and the difference between a vertical south wall and a well-angled frame is roughly a quarter of the output.
Nothing on a listed building or in its curtilage. In a conservation area, rear elevation only, or a side elevation that does not front a road. And it must come down when it is no longer needed or can no longer generate.
England has one operator per region. Scotland is divided between two, and you must notify the right one within 28 days of switching a device on.
Scottish Hydro-Electric Power Distribution plc
The Highlands, the islands, and the north east. Generation at Inverness runs to about 628 kWh a year on an ideal roof, which is the lowest figure anywhere in the UK.
SP Distribution plc
The central belt and the south. Glasgow returns about 661 kWh a year on the same basis, a little better than the north but still below every English region.
We treat this as a working map rather than a lookup. Confirm with the operator's own postcode checker before you rely on it. Scotland has two operators, so if you would rather not work out which, phoning 105 costs nothing and routes you to the right one automatically.
Tell us the postcode and we will work out which operator, which class, and what it would make.
Most of what is written about plug-in solar in the UK describes English rules. Send us a postcode and we will tell you which of the two Scottish operators covers it, what the device would make there, and which permitted development class applies to what you have in mind.