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Commercial building solar panels in Tewkesbury

A flat commercial roof in Tewkesbury is usually the largest surface a building owns and the one nobody is asked to manage. What decides a scheme is the roof covering, the parapet height and the plant layout, which is why the survey happens on the roof rather than from a satellite image.

878 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 210 kWp array models at about 184,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

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60 m 32 m N plant screen shade, kept clear stair core edge strip 1.5 m phase 1
Drawing Tewkesbury commercial roof
Roof 60 x 32 m, 1,920 m²
Array 210 kWp, east-west
Yield 184,000 kWh/yr
Scale 1:400 / Rev A / GL20

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.

14,390
people in the Tewkesbury built-up area (ONS Census 2021)
600
office properties on the rating list in Tewkesbury (VOA, March 2025)
450
retail properties, 10 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 South West market town, with rooftop solar on several buildings
Commercial stock of the kind we survey across South West. Generated illustration, not a named site.

Solar PV for commercial property across Gloucestershire

What a flat roof in Tewkesbury generates

Modelled irradiation here is 1,125 kWh per square metre a year on a low-tilt array, which works out at 878 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is within a few percent of the mean across the towns we cover, so the weather is not what decides the case here. Opening hours are.

Commercial stock in Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury has 600 office premises and 450 shops and other retail premises on the non-domestic rating list, according to the Valuation Office Agency. By office stock the district sits in the bottom quarter of the 318 districts in England and Wales; by retail stock it sits in the bottom quarter of the 318 districts in England and Wales.

The big roofs are in the 10 large-format retail units, superstores and retail warehouses in the district, about 10,000 square metres of floorspace under largely single storey roofs.

The same list carries 110 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 14,390 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 GL postcode area, starting from GL20.

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

What a Tewkesbury roof makes, month by month

Modelled output per kWp installed, for a shallow-pitched south-facing array. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2.

050100Jan: 24 kWh per kWpJanFeb: 39 kWh per kWpFebMar: 71 kWh per kWpMarApr: 103 kWh per kWpAprMay: 119 kWh per kWpMayJun: 121 kWh per kWpJunJul: 122 kWh per kWpJul122 kWh Aug: 102 kWh per kWpAugSep: 80 kWh per kWpSepOct: 49 kWh per kWpOctNov: 29 kWh per kWpNovDec: 20 kWh per kWpDec

Jul produces 6.1 times what Dec does on the same roof. A 210 kWp array here models at about 184,000 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
MonthkWh per kWp210 kWp array
Jan245,040
Feb398,190
Mar7114,910
Apr10321,630
May11924,990
Jun12125,410
Jul12225,620
Aug10221,420
Sep8016,800
Oct4910,290
Nov296,090
Dec204,200
Source: EU PVGIS v5.2
FIG. 2 Tewkesbury against the rest of Gloucestershire
  • Lydney905
  • Cirencester892
  • Stroud887
  • Cheltenham879
  • Tewkesbury878
  • Gloucester870

Tewkesbury ranks 5 of 6 towns we cover in Gloucestershire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 870 to 905, a spread of 35 kWh per kWp. Within Gloucestershire 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution

National Grid Electricity Distribution operates the distribution network across Gloucestershire, 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 Gloucestershire the planning database records 207 solar schemes totalling 1592 MW, of which 39 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

All solar on record near GL20

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
Claydon Farm European Energy Photovoltaics 18.2 MW Ground Abandoned
Walton Cardiff Manor Active Renewables 2 MW Ground Application Refused
Moog Controls Factory Moog Controls 0.38 MW Roof Operational
Claydon Farm - Solar Farm & Battery Storage JBM Solar Projects 17 Limited 49.9 MW Ground Awaiting Construction
Gloucester Road - Solar Carport Array Tewkesbury Borough Council 0.22 MW Ground Awaiting Construction
Dairy Way, Northway Lane, Unit 22 - Solar Panels Cotteswold Dairy Limited 0.59 MW Roof Application Submitted
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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.

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

Questions about solar in Tewkesbury

What would a 210 kWp array produce in Tewkesbury?
Yes. At 878 kWh per kWp a year, a 210 kWp array on a Tewkesbury roof models at around 184,000 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 Tewkesbury?
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 Tewkesbury 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 Tewkesbury 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 Tewkesbury?
Capacity varies street by street and only National Grid Electricity Distribution 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.

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