Commercial building solar panels in Coalville
A flat commercial roof in Coalville is usually the largest surface a building owns and the one nobody is asked to manage. 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.
863 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 210 kWp array models at about 181,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in CoalvilleIllustrative layout for a flat commercial roof of this size, with plant, shade and access kept clear. Your own figures come from the roof survey.
- 21,980
- people in the Coalville built-up area (ONS Census 2021)
- 740
- office properties on the rating list in North West Leicestershire (VOA, March 2025)
- 690
- retail properties, 20 of them large-format (VOA, March 2025)
- 1
- named commercial rooftop scheme on the planning record nearby (REPD, Q1 2026)
Solar PV for commercial property across Leicestershire
What a flat roof in Coalville generates
Modelled irradiation here is 1,100 kWh per square metre a year on a low-tilt array, which works out at 863 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 North West Leicestershire
North West Leicestershire has 740 office premises and 690 shops and other retail premises on the non-domestic rating list, according to the Valuation Office Agency. By office stock the district sits below the median 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 20 large-format retail units, superstores and retail warehouses in the district, about 29,000 square metres of floorspace under largely single storey roofs.
The same list carries 170 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.
Commercial rooftop solar already planned near Coalville
The Renewable Energy Planning Database records one roof-mounted scheme on supermarket and retail buildings in this postcode district. These are other organisations' projects, listed from the public record, not ours.
| Scheme | Applicant | Type | Capacity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morrisons, Whitwick Road | WM Morrisons Supermarkets Plc | retail | 0.75 MW | Awaiting Construction |
The built-up area holds about 21,980 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 LE postcode area, starting from LE67.
Coalville ranks 7 of 7 towns we cover in Leicestershire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 863 to 891, a spread of 28 kWh per kWp. Within Leicestershire that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.
Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution
National Grid Electricity Distribution is the network operator here, and their answer on export capacity shapes the design. Any commercial array above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99 rather than G98, and the application fixes what you are allowed to push back onto the network. If the local network is tight, limiting export rarely breaks the case here: most of the generation is consumed on site while the building is working.
Across Leicestershire the planning database records 165 solar schemes totalling 1259 MW, of which 37 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
All solar on record near LE67
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tower Hayes Farm | Elgar Middleton | 5 MW | Ground | Operational |
| Thornton Lane | Green Hedge (BayWa r.e.) | 2.7 MW | Ground | Operational |
| Amazon - BHX2 | Amazon UK Services / Push Energy | 3.7 MW | Roof | Planning Permission Expired |
| Pretoria Road | Lightsource BP | 4.9 MW | Ground | Operational |
| West Lane, Bardon Hill - Solar PV System | BeBa Energy UK Limited | 0.61 MW | Roof | Awaiting Construction |
| Morrisons, Whitwick Road - Solar Panels | WM Morrisons Supermarkets Plc | 0.75 MW | Roof | Awaiting Construction |
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 Coalville
- Is there enough sun in Coalville for a commercial roof array?
- Modelled at 863 kWh per kWp a year for a low-tilt array at this latitude, a 210 kWp system comes out at roughly 181,000 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 1,390 m² of flat roof once the edge strip, plant and walkways are kept clear. 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 North West Leicestershire?
- 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 North West Leicestershire 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 Coalville 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 Coalville?
- 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.