Solar Panels Sussex and Brighton: Costs, Grants, Rules

A south-facing roof near Lewes generates about 1,177 kWh per kWp a year on the EU's PVGIS model, about 38% more than the same roof in central Glasgow, and every unit you use instead of buying saves 26.88p at the South Eastern England price cap rate, the second dearest of Great Britain's fourteen cap regions. A typical 4.5kWp system would make about 5,296 kWh a year.

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How much electricity solar panels make in Sussex

A south-facing 1kWp system at 35 degrees in Lewes generates about 1,177 kWh a year, according to the EU's PVGIS model. That ranks 1 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.

Roof direction (35° pitch)	Per kWp a year	June	December
South-facing	1,177 kWh	145 kWh	41 kWh
East-facing	901 kWh	132 kWh	17 kWh
West-facing	922 kWh	137 kWh	18 kWh

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 Sussex

Every unit you use yourself saves 26.88p, the Ofgem price cap rate for direct debit customers in the South 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 Sussex it would generate about 5,296 kWh a year. If you used all of it, that would be worth about £1,424. If you exported all of it, about £636. 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.

Half of Brighton and Hove lives in a flat, and a fifth in a converted house

Exactly half of Brighton and Hove's households, 60,754 of 121,402, live in a flat, maisonette or apartment, against 22.2% across England. What makes the city unusual is not the purpose-built blocks, at 27.6%, but the conversions. At the 2021 Census 23,803 households, 19.6% of the city, were living in a converted or shared house including bedsits, against 3.5% in England. That is the biggest single gap between any Sussex area and the England figure in the whole housing table. Only 10.3% of Brighton and Hove households are in a detached house, less than half the England share of 22.9%.

That matters for solar because the law treats a flat differently from a house. Schedule 2 Part 14 Class A of the 2015 permitted development order covers panels on "a dwellinghouse or a block of flats", so a purpose-built block is inside the rule. A Regency terrace carved into four flats is the harder case, and the answer turns on whether your building counts as a block of flats, on who owns the roof, and on what your lease says. Ask the council and your freeholder before you book a survey rather than after. Our guide to solar panels for flats covers the leaseholder side, and permitted development covers the house case. Brighton and Hove also has an unusual number of homes with no gas bill to save on: 1.57% of its households are on a district or communal heat network only, against 0.92% in England, and 2.34% have no central heating at all.

A strong roof and a dear unit rate, which is the combination that pays

The Lewes model point returns 1,177 kWh per kWp a year for a south-facing array at 35 degrees, the strongest figure of any area we have written up, and Sussex also sits in the second dearest of Ofgem's fourteen price cap regions. At 26.88p a unit against a Great Britain average of 26.32p, only Merseyside and North Wales at 27.86p is dearer. Those two facts pull the same way: you generate more here than almost anywhere in the country, and each unit you keep is worth more than it would be in the Midlands or the North East. Peak month is June at about 145 kWh per kWp; December drops to about 41. Start with how many panels you need, and note that a dear unit rate is also the case for a battery, because every unit you shift out of the evening is worth more here.

Sussex is served by UK Power Networks, which runs the South Eastern Power Networks licence area covering Sussex, Kent and part of Surrey. You do not file anything yourself. Your installer notifies UK Power Networks through its Smart Connect portal, and must do so within 28 days of the installation; the network operator says only installers can notify on a customer's behalf. UK Power Networks says that where maximum export after any export limitation comes in under 5kW it approves the application automatically. That is its own sign-off, not the statutory connect-and-notify line, which sits at 3.68kW per phase and above which the job needs a G99 application rather than a G98 notification. There is nothing to pay UK Power Networks unless your actual electricity supply needs upgrading. Our G98 and G99 guide covers both. For the same network operator in the neighbouring county, see solar panels in Kent.

Wealden has about two and a half times Brighton's rate of solar

DESNZ counted 52,079 solar installations across the thirteen Sussex councils at the end of 2025, up from 45,869 a year earlier, and the gap between the top and bottom of Sussex is close to three to one. Wealden has 7,606 installations across 68,266 households, about 111 per 1,000 by our count, and Chichester 5,807 across 54,118 households, about 107. At the other end, Brighton and Hove has 5,112 across 121,402 households, about 42 per 1,000, Worthing about 43 and Hastings about 41. The UK average is about 69. Lewes district sits at about 98 and Mid Sussex about 92.

The explanation is in the housing table rather than the weather, because the sunshine barely varies across a county this size. Wealden is 43.7% detached houses and Rother 42.1%, roughly twice the England figure, and those are the two districts near the top. Crawley is 37.4% terraced and Brighton and Hove half flats, and those are near the bottom. One caveat applies to every council number here: DESNZ assigns installations to councils using the National Statistics Postcode Lookup, the 2025 figures were produced before the latest lookup appeared, and 31,900 GB installations could not be assigned to any council, against 3,144 a year earlier. Treat each Sussex count as a floor that will be revised upward.

In the South Downs your planning authority is not your council

The South Downs National Park Authority is the local planning authority for every part of the National Park, and for seven of the Sussex districts it covers the applications are handled by the Authority's team at Midhurst rather than by the district. Its own table sends Arun, Adur and Worthing, Brighton and Hove, Horsham, Lewes and Eastbourne, Mid-Sussex and Wealden to SDNP Midhurst on 01730 819361; of the Sussex districts only Chichester is a host authority processing its own Park applications. The Authority also charges a fee for its Do I Need Planning Permission enquiry, and has done since October 2024, so check whether you are inside the Park boundary first using its own map.

For a roof array none of that usually changes the answer. In England panels on the roof of a house are permitted development, and the conservation area restriction bites on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure fronting a highway rather than on a roof slope; a flat-roof array must stay within 0.6 metres of the highest part of the roof, a pitched-roof one within 0.2 metres of the slope, and listed buildings and scheduled monuments are out. A garden array is where the Park matters. Since 27 August 2026 a ground-mounted domestic array on article 2(3) land, which the order describes as National Parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and conservation areas among others, needs a prior approval determination from the planning authority if any part of it would sit within 5 metres of the boundary of your curtilage. In Sussex that catches the South Downs and the High Weald National Landscape, which covers 1,461 square kilometres of Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

Two grant schemes in Sussex, and neither is simply open

The Warm Homes: Local Grant can pay for solar panels outright, and Sussex is covered by two separate versions of it that are in different states. East Sussex runs its own, managed by Lewes and Eastbourne Councils for all five districts with £4m secured from DESNZ, and it names free solar panels as a funded measure. Brighton and Hove and the seven West Sussex districts sit instead in the Warmer Homes programme led by Portsmouth City Council with a consortium of 30 other councils, delivered by AgilityEco, which also funds solar PV. The gate is the same either way: an English home you own or rent privately, an EPC of D to G, and a household income usually of £36,000 a year or less, with postcode and benefit routes above that. gov.uk is blunt that it also depends on your council still having money.

In East Sussex, mostly it does not. Rother District Council states that the funding available to East Sussex up to March 2027 is fully allocated, that new applications cannot be accepted in Hastings, Rother, Lewes or Eastbourne, and that applications remain open only in Wealden, where Wealden District Council runs a separate waiting list. Be careful which page you read: the county's own grant site gives a blanket closure with no Wealden exception, and the managing authority's page at Lewes and Eastbourne carries no closure notice at all. On the Brighton and Hove and West Sussex side the scheme is open but oversubscribed, and the programme says a new registration joins a waiting list while it awaits a funding decision from DESNZ; Mid Sussex District Council says the same, though Brighton and Hove's own council page does not mention the queue.

The other national route is thinner. Hastings Borough Council, which issues ECO4 Flex declarations for the whole of East Sussex, gives the scheme's end date as 31 December 2026, while Rother's page still prints the old 31 March 2026 date, which tells you how much of this to take on trust. In West Sussex the partnership that runs ECO4 Flex warns that the extension left many installers without access to funding, that what remains is limited, and that residents must check both the installer and the funding behind any offer. Free advice is the easier thing to get, and each of the three upper-tier areas runs its own line: East Sussex's Warm Home Check on 0800 464 7307, the West Sussex Energy Advice Service on 0800 145 6879, whose home visits are currently paused, and LEAP on 0800 060 7567 in Brighton and Hove. See our guide to solar panel grants in the UK.

Getting solar quotes in Sussex

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.

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Solar panels in Sussex: frequently asked questions

Are solar panels worth it in Sussex?

On a house with a suitable roof, the arithmetic here is better than in most of the country. The Lewes model point returns about 1,177 kWh per kWp a year on PVGIS, the strongest of any area we cover, and every unit you use instead of buying saves 26.88p at the South Eastern England price cap rate for October to December 2026, the second dearest of Great Britain's fourteen cap regions. More generation and a dearer unit both shorten the payback.

Is there a solar panel grant in Sussex?

Yes in principle, but it depends which district you are in. The Warm Homes: Local Grant funds solar panels and Sussex is covered by two separate versions. Rother District Council says East Sussex funding to March 2027 is fully allocated and new applications are closed in Hastings, Rother, Lewes and Eastbourne, with Wealden still open on its own waiting list. Brighton and Hove and West Sussex sit in the Warmer Homes programme, which is open but oversubscribed and adds new registrations to a waiting list. You need an EPC of D to G, to own or privately rent, and usually a household income of £36,000 or less.

Do I need planning permission for solar panels in Sussex?

Usually not for panels on the roof of a house. In England the conservation area restriction applies to a wall, balcony or roof enclosure fronting a highway rather than to a roof slope, and Brighton and Hove has 34 conservation areas and 42 heritage Article 4 directions on top of them. A garden-mounted array is different: since 27 August 2026 one on article 2(3) land, which includes the South Downs National Park and the High Weald National Landscape, needs a prior approval determination if any part would sit within 5 metres of your boundary. If you are inside the National Park, the planning authority is the National Park Authority, not your district council.

Who is the network operator for solar in Sussex?

UK Power Networks, through its South Eastern Power Networks licence area. Your installer notifies it within 28 days of the installation using the Smart Connect portal, and UK Power Networks says it approves automatically where maximum export comes in under 5kW. The statutory connect-and-notify line is separate and sits at 3.68kW per phase. There is nothing to pay unless your electricity supply itself needs upgrading.

Sources for this page

Local sources checked on 28 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:

Solar Panels in Sussex