Commercial building solar panels across Tyne and Wear

What the data says about Tyne and Wear

Modelled yield varies across Tyne and Wear: Sunderland comes out at 849 kWh per kWp a year against 806 at Newcastle. On a 210 kWp commercial roof that gap is about 9,030 kWh a year.

Across the 4 authorities our Tyne and Wear towns sit in, the Valuation Office Agency lists 5,020 office and 7,150 retail properties, 280 of them large-format stores and retail warehouses. 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 planning database records no roof-mounted commercial schemes in the districts we cover in Tyne and Wear. That usually means arrays have gone in below its reporting threshold, not that none exist: many commercial roofs carry less than a megawatt and never appear.

Connections across the county run through Northern Powergrid. Anything above 3.68 kW per phase needs a G99 application, and the export limit offered shapes the design, so the question is asked before the array is sized.