Nantwich Solar: Local Output, Savings & 10 Verified Installers

It depends on which roof and which building. Nantwich has 131 listed buildings, mostly along Welsh Row, Hospital Street, High Street and Beam Street, and none of them have permitted development rights: panels on a listed building need listed building consent from Cheshire East Council. In the town-centre conservation area, panels on a roof slope facing the road may need planning permission, while a rear slope is usually fine. Before you book a survey, check your address against Cheshire East’s Article 4 address list, because an Article 4 direction removes permitted development rights for individual properties.

PVGIS, the European Commission’s solar model, estimates 3,724 kWh a year for a 4kW south-facing roof system at Nantwich. Output peaks at about 467 kWh in May and falls to about 121 kWh in December. East- or west-facing roofs, or shading from chimneys and neighbouring gables in the older streets, will bring the figure down, so ask each installer for a roof-specific estimate.

Nantwich is in the North Wales & Mersey price-cap region, where the capped unit rate for October to December 2026 is 27.86p per kWh by direct debit, above the 26.32p GB average. If you use 40–60% of a 4kW system’s 3,724 kWh at home, that takes about £415–£625 a year off your bill, plus roughly £195–£290 from exporting the rest at 13p/kWh. That’s about £705–£815 a year in total.

Possibly. The Cheshire and Warrington Warm Homes: Local Grant is run by Cheshire East Council, with Cotality (formerly CoreLogic UK) carrying out home assessments and Next Energy Services doing the retrofit work, and it can include solar PV. Applications go through GOV.UK. To qualify, the home must have an EPC of D to G and you must own it or rent it privately. Your household also needs to receive an income-related benefit or have an income of £36,000 or less (or £20,000 after housing costs). Separately, Cheshire East’s Switch Together group-buying scheme runs periodic rounds that let any resident compare pre-vetted installer prices.

In March 2025 Cheshire East’s strategic planning board unanimously approved Noventum Power’s 12MW solar farm on 17.5 hectares at Hatherton Lodge Farm, off Hunsterson Road south-east of Nantwich. It is expected to generate the equivalent of over 6,500 homes’ electricity a year. That power is exported straight into the grid at the A529 connection point, so it doesn’t reduce any individual household’s bill. Rooftop panels remain the only way to cut your own.

Nantwich Mill Community Energy, a not-for-profit community benefit company set up in the town, says it is encouraging local SMEs to put solar on their roofs and may be able to fund panels and sell the power back to the business at a discount, subject to a building assessment. It is also developing two small hydro schemes on the River Weaver. Contact them before getting commercial quotes to see whether your roof qualifies. For a straight commercial install, see commercial solar with Solar Panels Funded.

Much of CW5 outside the town is dairy farmland, and barns are some of the biggest unshaded roofs in the area. Panels on non-domestic buildings fall under separate permitted development rules (Part 14, Class J), and ground-mounted arrays or very large systems usually need planning permission from Cheshire East. Larger arrays also almost always need a G99 application to SP Energy Networks. Rural specialists such as Rural & Country Energy and Mere End Consultants on this list regularly quote for farm roofs, and Solar Panels Funded’s commercial solar service can match larger agricultural jobs.