Take Peterborough’s lead to deliver 7GW more rooftop solar

England’s solar power capacity could increase by around 7GW if the whole country matched the deployment of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels in Peterborough, new analysis shows.

Number crunching carried out by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) shows that rooftop PVs have been installed on around one-sixth of households in Peterborough, the highest proportion in any English constituency.

According to the latest official solar PV deployment statistics, broken down by constituency, there was 20.9MW of installed capacity in Peterborough. These 6,744 installations comprised 17% of the terraced, semi-detached and detached properties PVs could be installed on in the constituency, according to the ECIU’s analysis.

The ECIU estimates that if all English constituencies matched deployment rates in Peterborough, it would outstrip the amount of generation capacity from two new 3.2GW Hinkley C-scale nuclear power stations.

Increasing solar deployment by 7GW would increase installed domestic capacity by around 50%, taking the total level to around 22GW.

And should the rest of England match the level of solar deployment in Peterborough, 3 million homes would have rooftop solar.

This could produce more than 20TWh of electricity per annum, taking away the need for around 50 tankers of LNG, equivalent to the amount of gas required to heat more than 3.5 million homes for a year, the ECIU estimates.

Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the ECIU, said: “The gas crisis has taught some UK households a harsh lesson, with an 82% increase in solar panels installed in the first half of 2023 compared to last year. Brits are doing their bit to bring down bills and boost energy security by reducing the amount of gas we need the price of which is set to stay much higher than before the crisis. And solar is popular across the country, with government schemes helping to deliver solar into people’s homes to ease the cost-of-living crisis.”

While Peterborough had the most PV panels installed, South Cambridgeshire tops the list for the highest amount of installed capacity at 23.1MW.

The level of deployment of domestic solar generation was the second highest in Peterborough for any English constituency behind only South Cambridgeshire, where 23.4MW had been installed by the end of June.

Certified domestic solar installations increased by 82% year on year in the first half of 2023 to 102,797, according to latest monthly data published by MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme).