Solar Panel Installation
in Slough

Slough Borough Council's Local Plan identifies five conservation areas: Colnbrook, St Bernard's School, St Mary's Church (Langley), Sussex Place/Clifton Road and Upton Park/Upton Village. The permitted development rules for solar on houses were amended with effect from 27 August 2026. On a house that is not listed, panels on a pitched roof can qualify if they protrude no more than 0.2 metres beyond the roof slope and sit no higher than the highest part of the roof, excluding any chimney. Inside a conservation area two further limits apply: panels on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure that fronts a highway are not permitted development, and a flat-roof array needs an application to the council for a prior approval decision on its appearance before work starts. Outside those five areas, and away from listed buildings, a roof array within these limits is normally permitted development; inside them, check any street-facing wall or flat roof first.

The council's Upton Conservation Area Character Survey (July 2007) records that the area was designated in October 1977 and held eleven statutorily listed buildings as at January 2005, including the mainly Norman Grade I listed parish church of St Laurence and Upton Court, a Grade II* listed medieval manor house. It also notes that only 29 of the proposed villas at Upton Park were completed. For solar, listing is the tighter constraint: the current permitted development rules exclude solar on a house that is itself a listed building, and the council notes that normal listed building controls protect both the interior and exterior of listed buildings. For an unlisted house in Upton, a roof-slope array can still be permitted development if it meets the Class A size limits and is sited, so far as practicable, to minimise its effect on the building's external appearance.

Slough sits within the network area of Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN). SSEN's May 2025 strategic development plan for the Iver 132kV Grid Supply Point describes an area covering Slough and parts of Buckinghamshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Hillingdon, serving approximately 131,000 customers, with over 600MVA of data centres already connected and contracted and the majority of that load coming from the Slough area. For a small home system the connection step can be simple: SSEN's G98 process covers generation of up to 16A per phase, which is 3.68kW on a single-phase supply, and the G98 Form B must reach SSEN within 28 days of commissioning. SSEN says you must apply before connecting in some cases, including where total generation at the site exceeds the G98 limits or there is more than one generator at the property, so a Slough quote should state which route your system takes and who files the paperwork.

Census 2021 counted 52,422 households in Slough. Semi-detached houses and purpose-built blocks of flats each account for 29.6% of them, terraced houses 26.3% and detached houses 10.4%. Tenure matters just as much: 48.5% of households own their home, 30.7% rent privately and 19.6% rent socially. That means many Slough households need someone else's agreement before solar can go ahead: tenants will normally need their landlord on board, and in a block of flats the roof is often controlled by a freeholder or management company. The permitted development rules also set separate limits for blocks of flats, including excluding any block that is a listed building. If you own a Slough house you can go straight to a roof survey; if you rent or own a leasehold flat, speak to the owner of the roof first.

Using PVGIS, the European Commission Joint Research Centre's solar model, for a Slough location (51.5105, -0.595), a 4kWp array tilted at 35 degrees, facing due south, with 14% system losses, is estimated to produce about 4,120kWh a year. Output ranges from about 143kWh in December to 501kWh in July, and 68% of the year's total arrives between April and September. Split the same 4kWp equally across east and west slopes and the estimate drops to about 3,252kWh, 79% of the south-facing figure; the gap is small in June (94%) but wide in December (42%). For a Slough address, roof orientation moves the annual estimate by around a fifth, so any quote should model your actual roof slopes rather than a generic south-facing average.