What would a 210 kWp array produce in Wigston?

Yes. At 877 kWh per kWp a year, a 210 kWp array on a Wigston 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 Oadby and Wigston?

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 Oadby and Wigston 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 Wigston 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 Wigston?

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.

Commercial building solar panels in Wigston

Commercial roofs in Wigston tend to be flat, membrane covered and cluttered with plant, which shapes the layout more than the size does. 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.

877 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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Drawing Wigston 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 / LE18

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.

34,730: people in the Wigston built-up area (ONS Census 2021)
180: office properties on the rating list in Oadby and Wigston (VOA, March 2025)
400: retail properties, 0 of them large-format (VOA, March 2025)
1: named commercial rooftop scheme on the planning record nearby (REPD, Q1 2026)

The commercial edge of a Midlands town, a supermarket and low offices with rooftop solar — Commercial stock of the kind we survey across East Midlands. Generated illustration, not a named site.

Commercial rooftop solar across Leicestershire

Yield on a Wigston commercial roof

Modelled irradiation here is 1,120 kWh per square metre a year on a low-tilt array, which works out at 877 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.

How many commercial buildings Oadby and Wigston has

On the Valuation Office Agency's count, Oadby and Wigston holds 400 retail and 180 office properties on the rating list. 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 same list carries 50 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 Wigston

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records one roof-mounted scheme on leisure and hospitality buildings in this postcode district. These are other organisations' projects, listed from the public record, not ours.

Scheme	Applicant	Type	Capacity	Status
Wigston Swimming Pool, Station Road	Oadby & Wigston Borough Council	leisure	0.21 MW	Awaiting Construction

The built-up area holds about 34,730 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 LE18.

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

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

Month	kWh per kWp	210 kWp array
Jan	23	4,830
Feb	37	7,770
Mar	72	15,120
Apr	103	21,630
May	120	25,200
Jun	120	25,200
Jul	122	25,620
Aug	104	21,840
Sep	81	17,010
Oct	49	10,290
Nov	29	6,090
Dec	20	4,200

Source: EU PVGIS v5.2

FIG. 2 Wigston against the rest of Leicestershire

Market Harborough891
Melton Mowbray879
Wigston877
Leicester874
Hinckley870
Loughborough868
Coalville863

Wigston ranks 3 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.

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 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).

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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.

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

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

Questions about solar in Wigston

What would a 210 kWp array produce in Wigston?: Yes. At 877 kWh per kWp a year, a 210 kWp array on a Wigston 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 Oadby and Wigston?: 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 Oadby and Wigston 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 Wigston 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 Wigston?: 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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