Solar Panels in Newcastle upon Tyne

A south-facing roof in central Newcastle generates about 944 kWh per kWp a year on the EU's PVGIS model, more than Manchester despite being further north, and every unit you use saves 25.46p at the North Eastern England price cap rate, a rate only the East Midlands undercuts among Great Britain's fourteen cap regions. A typical 4.5kWp system would make about 4,248 kWh a year.

How much electricity solar panels make in Newcastle upon Tyne

A south-facing 1kWp system at 35 degrees in central Newcastle upon Tyne generates about 944 kWh a year, according to the EU's PVGIS model. That ranks 26 of the 31 areas we cover, which run from 850 kWh in Glasgow to 1,177 kWh in Sussex. East and west roofs still work, at roughly a fifth less.

PVGIS is a modelled figure for an unshaded roof with 14% system losses, and it runs higher than the MCS method installers must use for your written estimate, which gives roughly 800 to 950 kWh per kWp for a well-oriented UK roof. Use PVGIS to compare places and the installer's MCS estimate to plan your budget. Our guides to which direction panels should face and how much electricity solar panels produce go further.

What that electricity is worth in Newcastle upon Tyne

Every unit you use yourself saves 25.46p, the Ofgem price cap rate for direct debit customers in the North Eastern England region from 1 October to 31 December 2026. The Great Britain average is 26.32p. Every unit you export earns whatever your Smart Export Guarantee tariff pays, which the Energy Saving Trust puts at around 12p typically.

Take the Energy Saving Trust's typical 4.5kWp home system. On the PVGIS figure for Newcastle upon Tyne it would generate about 4,248 kWh a year. If you used all of it, that would be worth about £1,082. If you exported all of it, about £510. Real homes sit between the two, and a battery or daytime use pushes you towards the higher figure. The Energy Saving Trust prices that typical system at around £7,600. See our solar panel cost guide and current export rates.

A Tyneside flat is a flat, even when it looks like a house

Only 9.5% of Newcastle's 122,798 households live in a detached house, against 22.9% across England, and nearly a third live in a flat of some kind. At the 2021 Census 24.8% were in a purpose-built block of flats or tenement, against 17.1% in England, and another 6.0% in a converted or shared house including bedsits. Add the smaller categories and 39,652 Newcastle households, 32.3% of them, are in a flat rather than a house. Semi-detached is still the biggest single type at 34.6%, and terraced is 23.6%.

The complication is the Tyneside flat. The city council's Maintaining Sustainable Communities guidance defines it as a two-storey building with one single flat above another and separate front doors, terraced or semi-detached, and says the permitted development rights a house enjoys do not apply to flats, including Tyneside flats, so work that materially changes the external appearance needs planning permission. The solar rules sit in a different and wider part of the law: Schedule 2 Part 14 Class A of the 2015 order permits panels on "a dwellinghouse or a block of flats". Whether a pair of Tyneside flats is a block of flats is the question to put to the council's free check before you book a survey, not something to assume either way. Our guide to solar panels for flats covers the leaseholder side, and permitted development covers the house case.

Newcastle has less solar than the region around it

The government counted 5,523 solar installations in Newcastle at the end of 2025, up from 4,731 a year earlier, which is about 45 per 1,000 households by our count against a UK average of about 69. That is the 82nd lowest rate of the 361 UK local authorities in the table, and it is not the weather doing it. Across the North East as a whole the same table gives roughly 69 per 1,000, exactly the UK figure. Northumberland runs at about 100 per 1,000 and Sunderland about 95; North Tyneside is about 68 and County Durham about 72. Newcastle at 45 and Gateshead at 38 are the two thin spots, and both are the dense, flat-heavy ends of Tyneside.

The region is also growing more slowly than the rest of the country. In the government's first regional solar breakdown, published in August 2026, the North East was not in the UK's top five regions for deployment and recorded an 11% rise in installations in the year to July, against 18% in Wales and 14% in Scotland. One caveat on all the council figures: the government warns that its 2025 data were produced before the latest postcode lookup, so 31,900 installations could not be assigned to a council and the local numbers will be revised upward.

The Newcastle grant can pay for solar, but there is a queue

Newcastle City Council's Warm Homes: Local Grant does fund solar panels, and the council says it is currently oversubscribed, with applications going on a waiting list until more funding arrives. The test is that you own your home or rent from a private landlord, and either live in an eligible IMD1-2 postcode with evidence of need or have a gross household income of £36,000 a year or less, and have an EPC of D or below. The council warns that existing certificates get double-checked because the calculation method changed in June 2025. Newcastle's delivery partner is Warmworks, which adds that someone in the household should be on a means-tested benefit and that homes never previously occupied are excluded.

Worth knowing: the partner's own Newcastle page still invites enquiries and says nothing about a waiting list, so the two pages do not agree. Apply through the government checker or ring 0800 011 6189, and ask where you sit in the queue before you turn down a paid quote. The other national route is thinner still. The council states plainly that although ECO4 officially runs to the end of December 2026, funding is extremely limited and it is not aware of any energy suppliers or local installers with funding remaining. Free, independent advice is easier to get: North East Warm Homes on 0808 175 9345 will talk through improvements and send an adviser to the house if you own it or rent privately. See our guide to solar panel grants in the UK.

Twelve conservation areas, and Article 4 down to the house number

Newcastle has 12 conservation areas rather than one large historic core: Brandling Village, Central, Framlington Place, Gosforth, Jesmond Dene, Leazes, Lower Ouseburn Valley, Northumberland Gardens, South Jesmond, St Nicholas Hospital, Summerhill and Walbottle. In England the conservation area restriction on solar applies to panels on a wall that fronts a highway, not to roof slopes, so being inside one of the twelve is rarely the end of the conversation. The council publishes a profile sheet and a character statement for each, a management plan for all of them bar Central, which is still under preparation, and an interactive map with an address search.

Newcastle's householder Article 4 directions are unusually granular: they name individual terraces and house numbers rather than neighbourhoods, and several of them withdraw the right to alter the roof of a dwelling house. The published list covers Coronation Road 2-24, Greenfield Place 1-6, High Swinburne Place 1-4, Northumberland Gardens 1-24, North Walbottle Road 2, 4, 8, 10 and 12, Ravensworth Terrace, Summerhill Grove and Summerhill Terrace, Swinburne Place, four terraces at Saint Peter's Basin, parts of Westgate Road and Winchester Terrace 1-10. Those directions date from between 1983 and 1997, so whether one bites on a modern rooftop array at a given address is a question for the council. There is a free online check at planningservices.newcastle.gov.uk, which the council labels guidance rather than a binding view, and a pre-planning application costs £100 for household work. A listed building needs consent whatever the street: see solar panels in a conservation area and solar panels on a listed building.

Your network operator, and the catch in a cheap unit rate

Newcastle's network is run by Northern Powergrid, whose first-listed office is at Lloyds Court, 78 Grey Street, inside the city's own Central conservation area. A single home system is notified on G98 Form B, which your installer submits once the install is finished, to Northern Powergrid at Houghton le Spring or by email; anything over 3.68kW per phase needs a G99 application instead. You do not file any of it yourself. See our G98 and G99 guide.

The cheap North East rate has a sting in it. At 25.46p a unit against a Great Britain average of 26.32p, every kilowatt-hour you keep is worth a little less here than almost anywhere else, so self-consumption matters more and a battery earns its keep more slowly. One more Newcastle quirk: 2.3% of households are on a district or communal heat network only, against 0.9% across England, and a home with no gas bill has to take its whole saving out of the electricity bill. Sizing matters more here than most places, so start with how many panels you need, then compare with solar panels in Sheffield, Leeds or Manchester.

Getting solar quotes in Newcastle upon Tyne

Get at least three written quotes from MCS-certified installers, each with a performance estimate for your roof and a full breakdown of what is supplied. The Renewable Energy Consumer Code recommends quotes from at least 3 different companies, limits its members to a deposit of no more than 25% of the contract price, and says a reputable company will never make you feel pressured into signing. Our guide to choosing a solar installer covers what to check.

Sources for this page

Local sources checked on 27 October 2026. Solar yields: PVGIS 5.2, EU Joint Research Centre, modelled October 2026. Electricity prices: Ofgem price cap by region. System cost and export rate: Energy Saving Trust. Local sources:

• Newcastle City Council: energy advice and the Warm Homes: Local Grant
• Warmworks: Warm Homes: Local Grant with Newcastle City Council
• Newcastle City Council: conservation areas
• Newcastle City Council: list of Article 4 directions
• Newcastle City Council: is planning permission needed?
• Newcastle City Council: Maintaining Sustainable Communities SPD (Tyneside flats)
• GPDO 2015 Schedule 2 Part 14: solar on domestic premises
• Nomis: Census 2021 accommodation type (TS044)
• Nomis: Census 2021 central heating (TS046)
• DESNZ: Renewable electricity by local authority, 2014 to 2025
• DESNZ: first regional solar breakdown (August 2026)
• Northern Powergrid: small scale generation (G98)