What would a 210 kWp array produce in Durham?

Yes. At 823 kWh per kWp a year, a 210 kWp array on a Durham roof models at around 173,000 kWh. What changes the answer is how much of that the building uses during opening hours rather than exports. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

Do we need planning permission for solar on a commercial building in County Durham?

Usually not a full application. In England, panels on the roof of a non-domestic building are permitted development under Class J of Part 14 of the General Permitted Development Order, with no capacity cap since December 2023. Above 50 kW, which covers most commercial arrays, you must first apply to County Durham for a determination on prior approval of the design and appearance, in particular glare on neighbouring land. On a flat roof panels may stand no more than 1 metre above the roof and must sit at least 1 metre from its edge, and listed buildings and scheduled monuments are excluded. See our planning permission guide for the detail.

Does solar help a Durham landlord meet MEES?

It can. A non-domestic EPC is an asset rating, and on-site generation counts in the calculation, so an array usually lifts the score. Let property in England and Wales must be EPC E or better today. The government's interim response of 18 June 2026 proposes EPC B, where cost effective, from 2031 for let buildings over 1,000 m², and drops the EPC C step once planned for 2027. How far solar moves a particular building depends on its fabric and services, which is why the EPC assessor models it before anything is fitted.

Which network operator handles the connection in Durham?

Capacity varies street by street and only Northern Powergrid can answer it for your connection. We ask early, because an export-limited offer changes the design rather than ending the scheme, and most commercial buildings use most of what they generate anyway.

Commercial building solar panels in Durham

An office or store in Durham buys most of its electricity between eight in the morning and six at night, which is when a roof array generates. We check the covering and the lease together, because a roof with eight years of membrane left and a tenant with a break in three changes the answer.

823 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 210 kWp array models at about 173,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

Book a roof survey in Durham

Drawing Durham commercial roof

Roof 60 x 32 m, 1,920 m²

Array 210 kWp, east-west

Yield 173,000 kWh/yr

Scale 1:400 / Rev A / DH1

Illustrative layout for a flat commercial roof of this size, with plant, shade and access kept clear. Your own figures come from the roof survey.

50,510: people in the Durham built-up area (ONS Census 2021)
2,340: office properties on the rating list in County Durham (VOA, March 2025)
4,190: retail properties, 170 of them large-format (VOA, March 2025)
0: named commercial rooftop schemes on the planning record nearby (REPD, Q1 2026)

The commercial edge of a northern town, offices and a retail park with solar on several roofs — Commercial stock of the kind we survey across North East. Generated illustration, not a named site.

Solar for offices and retail across County Durham

How much sun a Durham roof gets

Modelled irradiation here is 1,048 kWh per square metre a year on a low-tilt array, which works out at 823 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is about 7 percent below the mean across the towns we cover, so the case here rests more on daytime consumption than on raw generation.

The rating list for County Durham

The Valuation Office Agency's rating list puts 2,340 office and 4,190 retail properties in County Durham, covering about 396,000 and 805,000 square metres of floorspace respectively. By office stock the district sits in the top quarter of the 318 districts in England and Wales; by retail stock it sits in the top tenth of the 318 districts in England and Wales.

The big roofs are in the 170 large-format retail units, superstores and retail warehouses in the district, about 324,000 square metres of floorspace under largely single storey roofs.

The same list carries 990 hotel, leisure and assembly properties in the district. Leisure centres and hotels run seven days a week, which puts weekend generation to use that an office would export.

Source: Valuation Office Agency, Non-domestic rating: business floorspace, 31 March 2025 (published December 2025), counts and floorspace by special category code and local authority district, England and Wales.

The built-up area holds about 50,510 people, so the stock here runs to high street premises, a supermarket or two and the odd hotel (ONS Census 2021 built-up areas).

We arrange surveys across the DH postcode area, starting from DH1.

FIG. 1 What a Durham roof makes, month by month

May produces 7.9 times what Dec does on the same roof. A 210 kWp array here models at about 173,000 kWh across the year, but it arrives unevenly, which is why we size against your summer daytime load and then look at whether storage is worth adding for the shoulder months.

Monthly figures as a table

Month	kWh per kWp	210 kWp array
Jan	19	3,990
Feb	34	7,140
Mar	67	14,070
Apr	98	20,580
May	119	24,990
Jun	112	23,520
Jul	117	24,570
Aug	99	20,790
Sep	75	15,750
Oct	44	9,240
Nov	24	5,040
Dec	15	3,150

Source: EU PVGIS v5.2

FIG. 2 Durham against the rest of County Durham

Peterlee845
Durham823
Chester-le-Street821
Newton Aycliffe819
Bishop Auckland817
Consett811

Durham ranks 2 of 6 towns we cover in County Durham on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 811 to 845, a spread of 34 kWh per kWp. Within County Durham that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.

Bars are zero based, so length is proportional to the figure. Where a county is flat, that is the finding: location is not the lever, consumption is. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, modelled per town

Grid connection through Northern Powergrid

Northern Powergrid operates the distribution network across County Durham, so the export application goes to them. Anything larger than 3.68 kW per phase falls under G99, which means an application before commissioning rather than a notification afterwards. A constrained network is not the end of a scheme. Capping export costs little when the building already absorbs most of what the roof produces.

Across County Durham the planning database records 85 solar schemes totalling 1168 MW, of which 9 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

All solar on record near DH1

Every scheme in this postcode district in the government's Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026, ground and roof mounted, commercial or not. None of them is ours. Together they are a fair guide to how the local network has been treating export applications.

Scheme	Operator	Capacity	Mounting	Status
Faerch Durham Solar Panels	Engerera Renewables Limited	0.61 MW	Roof	Awaiting Construction
Collingwood College, South Road - Solar Panels	Howarth Litchfield Partnership	n/a	Roof	Awaiting Construction
The Graham Sports Centre, Maiden Castle - Solar Pv Panels	Durham University	n/a	Roof	Awaiting Construction
Grey College, South Road - Solar Panels	Durham University	0.19 MW	Roof	Awaiting Construction
SG Petch, Broomside Park - Solar Panels	SG Petch	0.16 MW	Roof	Awaiting Construction
Josephine Butler College Main Building, South Road - Solar Panels	Durham University	n/a	Roof	Awaiting Construction

Book the survey

Send us the postcode

Tell us where the building is, roughly how big the roof is, and whether you own it or lease it. We come back with what it can carry, what it would generate against your consumption, and the three ways to pay for it.

Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges the survey and passes your details to our MCS-certified installation partner so they can quote.

Your name Company Email Phone Site postcode Building type Your interest in the building Roof area Annual electricity spend What are you looking at?

Anything we should know about the roof?

We pass your details to our MCS-certified installation partner so they can quote. Read the privacy notice.

Questions about solar in Durham

What would a 210 kWp array produce in Durham?: Yes. At 823 kWh per kWp a year, a 210 kWp array on a Durham roof models at around 173,000 kWh. What changes the answer is how much of that the building uses during opening hours rather than exports. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Do we need planning permission for solar on a commercial building in County Durham?: Usually not a full application. In England, panels on the roof of a non-domestic building are permitted development under Class J of Part 14 of the General Permitted Development Order, with no capacity cap since December 2023. Above 50 kW, which covers most commercial arrays, you must first apply to County Durham for a determination on prior approval of the design and appearance, in particular glare on neighbouring land. On a flat roof panels may stand no more than 1 metre above the roof and must sit at least 1 metre from its edge, and listed buildings and scheduled monuments are excluded. See our planning permission guide for the detail.
Does solar help a Durham landlord meet MEES?: It can. A non-domestic EPC is an asset rating, and on-site generation counts in the calculation, so an array usually lifts the score. Let property in England and Wales must be EPC E or better today. The government's interim response of 18 June 2026 proposes EPC B, where cost effective, from 2031 for let buildings over 1,000 m², and drops the EPC C step once planned for 2027. How far solar moves a particular building depends on its fabric and services, which is why the EPC assessor models it before anything is fitted.
Which network operator handles the connection in Durham?: Capacity varies street by street and only Northern Powergrid can answer it for your connection. We ask early, because an export-limited offer changes the design rather than ending the scheme, and most commercial buildings use most of what they generate anyway.

Nearby

All County Durham locations