Commercial building solar panels in Great Yarmouth
A flat commercial roof in Great Yarmouth 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.
920 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 210 kWp array models at about 193,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Great YarmouthIllustrative layout for a flat commercial roof of this size, with plant, shade and access kept clear. Your own figures come from the roof survey.
- 28,985
- people in the Great Yarmouth built-up area (ONS Census 2021)
- 470
- office properties on the rating list in Great Yarmouth (VOA, March 2025)
- 1,030
- retail properties, 40 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 Norfolk
What a flat roof in Great Yarmouth generates
Modelled irradiation here is 1,176 kWh per square metre a year on a low-tilt array, which works out at 920 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is around 4 percent above the mean across the towns we cover.
Commercial stock in Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth has 470 office premises and 1,030 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 below the median of the 318 districts in England and Wales.
The big roofs are in the 40 large-format retail units, superstores and retail warehouses in the district, about 66,000 square metres of floorspace under largely single storey roofs.
The same list carries 240 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 Great Yarmouth
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hopton Holiday Village, Warren Road | Bourne Leisure Limited | leisure | 0.24 MW | Awaiting Construction |
The built-up area holds about 28,985 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 NR postcode area, starting from NR31.
Great Yarmouth ranks 2 of 8 towns we cover in Norfolk on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 897 to 923, a spread of 26 kWh per kWp. Within Norfolk that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.
Grid connection through UK Power Networks
UK Power Networks operates the distribution network across Norfolk, 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 Norfolk the planning database records 179 solar schemes totalling 1490 MW, of which 43 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
All solar on record near NR31
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hopton Holiday Village, Warren Road - Solar Panels | Bourne Leisure Limited | 0.24 MW | Roof | Awaiting Construction |
| James Paget University Hospital - Design And Installation Of PV Panels | James Paget University Hospital Trust | n/a | Roof | Under Construction |
| Proserv, Gawain Road - Solar Panels | Spartek ECS Limited | 0.25 MW | Roof | Application Submitted |
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 Great Yarmouth
- What would a 210 kWp array produce in Great Yarmouth?
- Yes. At 920 kWh per kWp a year, a 210 kWp array on a Great Yarmouth roof models at around 193,000 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 Great Yarmouth?
- 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 Great Yarmouth 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 Great Yarmouth 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 Great Yarmouth?
- Capacity varies street by street and only UK Power Networks 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.