Commercial building solar panels in Oldham
An office or store in Oldham buys most of its electricity between eight in the morning and six at night, which is when a roof array generates. 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.
771 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 210 kWp array models at about 162,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in OldhamIllustrative layout for a flat commercial roof of this size, with plant, shade and access kept clear. Your own figures come from the roof survey.
- 110,720
- people in the Oldham built-up area (ONS Census 2021)
- 1,260
- office properties on the rating list in Oldham (VOA, March 2025)
- 2,120
- retail properties, 50 of them large-format (VOA, March 2025)
- 0
- named commercial rooftop schemes on the planning record nearby (REPD, Q1 2026)
Solar for offices and retail across Greater Manchester
How much sun a Oldham roof gets
Modelled irradiation here is 987 kWh per square metre a year on a low-tilt array, which works out at 771 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is about 13 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 Oldham
The Valuation Office Agency's rating list puts 1,260 office and 2,120 retail properties in Oldham, covering about 149,000 and 357,000 square metres of floorspace respectively. By office stock the district sits above the median of the 318 districts in England and Wales; by retail stock it sits in the top quarter of the 318 districts in England and Wales.
The big roofs are in the 50 large-format retail units, superstores and retail warehouses in the district, about 150,000 square metres of floorspace under largely single storey roofs.
The same list carries 300 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 110,720 people, large enough for a retail park or two and a cluster of office buildings (ONS Census 2021 built-up areas).
We arrange surveys across the OL postcode area, starting from OL4.
Oldham ranks 9 of 10 towns we cover in Greater Manchester on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 769 to 828, a spread of 59 kWh per kWp. On a 210 kWp commercial roof that is about 12,390 kWh a year between the strongest and weakest town in the county.
Grid connection through Electricity North West
Electricity North West operates the distribution network across Greater Manchester, 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 Greater Manchester the planning database records 118 solar schemes totalling 110 MW, of which 11 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
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.
Questions about solar in Oldham
- What would a 210 kWp array produce in Oldham?
- Yes. At 771 kWh per kWp a year, a 210 kWp array on a Oldham roof models at around 162,000 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 Oldham?
- 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 Oldham 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 Oldham 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 Oldham?
- Capacity varies street by street and only Electricity North West 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.