Is there enough sun in Leeds for a commercial roof array?

Modelled at 830 kWh per kWp a year for a low-tilt array at this latitude, a 210 kWp system comes out at roughly 174,000 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 Leeds?

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 Leeds 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 Leeds 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 Leeds?

Capacity varies street by street and only Northern Powergrid 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 Leeds

An office or store in Leeds 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.

830 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 210 kWp array models at about 174,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

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Drawing Leeds commercial roof

Roof 60 x 32 m, 1,920 m²

Array 210 kWp, east-west

Yield 174,000 kWh/yr

Scale 1:400 / Rev A / LS2

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.

536,280: people in the Leeds built-up area (ONS Census 2021)
8,350: office properties on the rating list in Leeds (VOA, March 2025)
6,950: retail properties, 250 of them large-format (VOA, March 2025)
0: named commercial rooftop schemes on the planning record nearby (REPD, Q1 2026)

The commercial edge of a West Yorkshire town, several flat roofs carrying solar, moorland behind — Commercial stock of the kind we survey across Yorkshire and The Humber. Generated illustration, not a named site.

Solar for offices and retail across West Yorkshire

How much sun a Leeds roof gets

Modelled irradiation here is 1,060 kWh per square metre a year on a low-tilt array, which works out at 830 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is about 6 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 Leeds

The Valuation Office Agency's rating list puts 8,350 office and 6,950 retail properties in Leeds, covering about 1,755,000 and 1,325,000 square metres of floorspace respectively. By office stock the district sits in the top tenth of the 318 districts in England and Wales; by retail stock it sits in the top tenth of the 318 districts in England and Wales.

The big roofs are in the 250 large-format retail units, superstores and retail warehouses in the district, about 586,000 square metres of floorspace under largely single storey roofs.

The same list carries 1,220 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 536,280 people, a city-scale centre with office quarters, shopping centres and out-of-town retail parks (ONS Census 2021 built-up areas).

We arrange surveys across the LS postcode area, starting from LS2.

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

May produces 6.4 times what Dec does on the same roof. A 210 kWp array here models at about 174,000 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	20	4,200
Feb	36	7,560
Mar	68	14,280
Apr	97	20,370
May	116	24,360
Jun	112	23,520
Jul	116	24,360
Aug	102	21,420
Sep	75	15,750
Oct	45	9,450
Nov	26	5,460
Dec	18	3,780

Source: EU PVGIS v5.2

FIG. 2 Leeds against the rest of West Yorkshire

Pontefract846
Wakefield837
Dewsbury835
Leeds830
Bradford817
Ilkley813
Halifax812
Huddersfield811

Leeds ranks 4 of 8 towns we cover in West Yorkshire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 811 to 846, a spread of 35 kWh per kWp. Within West Yorkshire 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 Northern Powergrid

Northern Powergrid 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 West Yorkshire the planning database records 170 solar schemes totalling 550 MW, of which 8 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

All solar on record near LS2

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
Regent Street, Sheepscar - Solar Panels	Stokers Limited	0.22 MW	Roof	Operational
Victoria Gate Leeds, George Street - Solar Panels	Redical Holdings	0.17 MW	Roof	Awaiting Construction
Leeds Dental Institute, The Worsley Medical - Solar Panels	University of Leeds	n/a	Roof	Application Submitted

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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 Leeds

Is there enough sun in Leeds for a commercial roof array?: Modelled at 830 kWh per kWp a year for a low-tilt array at this latitude, a 210 kWp system comes out at roughly 174,000 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 Leeds?: 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 Leeds 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 Leeds 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 Leeds?: Capacity varies street by street and only Northern Powergrid 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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All West Yorkshire locations