Where we work
Solar PV in Greater ManchesterSolar, batteries and EV chargers across Greater Manchester.
For solar PV in Greater Manchester, the south of the city region is the furthest part of our home patch, reached down the M56. Altrincham, Manchester and Stockport are on a different network from our base, so the connection paperwork for solar panels in Stockport or Altrincham goes to a different operator.
Greater Manchester
Every town we cover here.
Straight-line distance from our base in Ellesmere Port, nearest first.
- Altrincham 24 miles Trafford · England · battery storage · EV chargers
- Manchester 30 miles Manchester · England · battery storage · EV chargers
- Stockport 32 miles Stockport · England · battery storage · EV chargers
The roof studio
Turn the house, fill the roof.
A Cheshire semi on a turntable. Drag it round, then tell it about your roof and your house — the panels, the battery, the current running through it and the numbers all move together.
01Your roof
02Your house
Estimated generation
3,870
kWh a year
Estimated saving
£834
a year, saved and earned
Estimated payback
10.1
years
System size
4.40 kWp
Panels
10
Your use covered
58%
Of what the roof generates
Worked out for a typical Cheshire roof at the pitch and aspect you picked, on a unit rate of 28p and an export rate of 6.5p — rates this tool assumes, dated September 2026, rather than any tariff you have been offered. Nothing here is a quotation: your roof, your shading and how much electricity you use while the sun is up are what the survey settles.
Take the figures with you.
Copy what the studio worked out for your roof, or send it straight to us with a survey request. None of it is a quote: the survey replaces every figure above with your own.
Every assumption behind the numbers
- Unit rate
- 28p for every unit (kWh) you’d otherwise buy from the grid.
- Export rate
- 6.5p for every unit the house and battery can’t use and send back to the grid.
- Your yearly use
- Worked out from your monthly bill at the 28p unit rate, after a standing charge of about 36p a day — and never less than 1,100 kWh a year.
- What a panel makes
- Each panel is 440 W (0.44 kWp). A kWp makes 880 kWh a year facing south, 760 facing east–west and 620 facing north-ish. For this part of Cheshire the EU’s PVGIS model gives 951 for a south roof at a typical pitch — the studio stays below it.
- Pitch
- Shallow (28°) makes 95% of a typical 38° roof; steep (48°) makes 97%.
- Shading
- A bit of shade costs 10%; heavy shade costs 24%.
- How many panels
- Two rows, growing with your bill from three columns to eight — six panels up to sixteen.
- How much you use yourself
- The share of what the roof makes that the house uses: 30% if you’re usually out, 46% in and out, 62% usually home. A battery adds 24 points and a car charger 6, up to 86% — and never more than 62% of your whole year’s use.
- Saving
- The units you use yourself at 28p, plus the units you export at 6.5p.
- Payback
- The yearly saving set against what a system like the one you’ve built typically costs to install: a base figure, an amount for each panel, and more again for a battery or a charger. The answer is held between 4 and 25 years. The studio never shows that cost, because only a survey can price your roof — so treat the years as a rough guide, not a figure to hold us to.
Monthly and yearly sunshine for this area: PVGIS 5.2, EU Joint Research Centre. The unit rate, the export rate and the standing charge are the studio’s own assumptions, set in September 2026 — not a tariff we have quoted you. Your own rates are on your bill, and a survey works from those.
The coverage map
Greater Manchester on the map.
The wires
Who runs the network here.
Which distribution network you sit on decides who signs off the connection, and on what terms.
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Manchester, Stockport and Altrincham are all on SP Electricity North West, not SP Manweb. The Energy Networks Association lists it as distributor 16, “North Western England”, and the operator says it “is now part of the Iberdrola group”.
energynetworks.org · enwl.co.uk -
SP Electricity North West sets the threshold out plainly: “G98 applies to all generation installations up to 16 amps per phase (Single phase systems up to 3.68kW and Three phase systems up to 11.04kW). Anything larger will fall into a G99 application.” For a single home it asks that “you will need to notify us by completing the G98 form B”.
enwl.co.uk -
The operator publishes a property-level Low Carbon Technology Readiness Checker of about 2.1 million records. It flags issues such as looped or overhead service cables, and where none are found the property is pre-approved for “‘Connect and Notify’ installations of domestic low carbon technologies”.
electricitynorthwest.opendatasoft.com
Every install is notified to that operator — how G98 and G99 work.
Planning
What the planning rules say here.
Most domestic solar is permitted development, with conditions. These are the ones that apply here.
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Rooftop solar on a house in England is permitted development under Part 14, Class A of the GPDO 2015. On the text as amended on 27 August 2026, panels on a pitched roof may protrude no more than 0.2 metres and may not rise above the highest part of the roof, chimneys excluded; on a flat roof the limit is 0.6 metres.
legislation.gov.uk · legislation.gov.uk
If your roof is listed, flat or in a conservation area, say so on the first call — it changes the design, not the answer. When solar panels need planning permission, and how panels go on a flat roof.
Planning authorities
Who decides planning in Greater Manchester.
3 authorities cover the towns on this page. Each one publishes its own conservation-area map — worth a look before anything goes on a front elevation.
- Manchester City Councilmanchester.gov.uk
- Stockport Councilstockport.gov.uk
- Trafford Counciltrafford.gov.uk
Greater Manchester · questions
What people ask about Greater Manchester.
If yours isn’t here, give us a ring and ask, or see every question.
SP Electricity North West — a different operator from the SP Manweb network that covers Cheshire and the Wirral. Its line falls at 16 amps per phase, which is 3.68kW on a single-phase supply and 11.04kW on three-phase: below it, a home notifies the operator on G98 form B; above it, the connection goes through G99. The Energy Networks Association numbers it distributor 16, the number that appears in the MPAN on your bill.
An open-data register from SP Electricity North West that checks individual properties, around 2.1 million of them, for things like looped or overhead service cables. A property where none of those turns up counts as pre-approved for ‘Connect and Notify’ installs of domestic low carbon technology, so it is worth looking up a Manchester, Stockport or Altrincham address before the survey.
Usually not. The same national rules apply here as in Cheshire, on the text in force since 27 August 2026: panels can stand up to 0.2 metres proud of a pitched roof, never above its highest point bar chimneys, and up to 0.6 metres on a flat roof. The catch is conservation areas: a flat-roof array needs prior approval of its appearance, nothing may go on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure that fronts a highway, and Trafford warns that an Article 4 Direction can restrict permitted development further. Stockport maps conservation areas, listed buildings and Article 4 Directions in one place.
About 30 miles in a straight line, down the M56 from Ellesmere Port. Altrincham is the nearest town on this page at 24 miles, and Stockport the furthest at 32.
One of three: Trafford Council for Altrincham, Manchester City Council for Manchester, and Stockport Council for Stockport. Each keeps its own conservation-area map.
Data last reviewed: September 2026.
From the Google profile
What people say after we have been.
4 of our 39 Google reviews, word for word. The rest are on the reviews page.
The work itself
Three of our own roofs.
Finished arrays from our own jobs.
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A timber-clad house with its arrays squared to the ridge -
Black panels on a concrete-tile roof under a grey sky -
Fourteen panels on a tiled roof, in the last of the light
What we do here
Solar panels, batteries and car chargers in Greater Manchester.
What we fit
- Solar PVPanels sized to your roof and your bills
- Battery storageKeep the midday surplus for the evening
- EV chargingA charger that can follow the sun
- Retrofit batteryStorage added to panels you already own
The kit we fit
- Tesla Powerwall installer, Greater ManchesterHome battery with the solar inverter built in
- Fox ESS installer, Greater ManchesterHybrid inverters and stacked EP batteries
- EcoFlow installer, Greater ManchesterPowerOcean: hybrid inverter over stacked packs
- Hypervolt installer, Greater ManchesterHome EV charger with solar-only charging modes
Start here
Start with a conversation, not a quote.
Tell us the postcode and roughly what you use. We’ll tell you honestly whether the roof is worth doing — and if it isn’t, that’s a perfectly good answer too.
- Takes about a minute
- You get a person, not a brochure
- No obligation, and no visit until you ask for one