Data reference · 17 min read

UK Commercial Solar Statistics 2026: Capacity, Installations and Generation

Short answer: the UK had a provisional 23.4 GW of solar on 2,160,021 installations at the end of September 2026. The two size bands where business roofs sit hold 1.96 GW on 94,885 installations (10 kW to under 50 kW) and 4.01 GW on 8,970 installations (50 kW to under 5 MW). Solar made 6.9% of the UK's electricity in 2025. Every number on this page is from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), with the table it came from, so you can check it and quote it.

Data checked 29 October 2026. Latest releases: ET 6.3 (September 2026 data), published 29 October 2026, and ET 6.1 (April to June 2026 data), published 29 September 2026. Next: ET 6.3 on 26 November 2026, ET 6.1 on 17 December 2026.

UK solar capacity: key figures

UK solar capacity reached a provisional 23.4 GW at the end of September 2026, up 1.9 GW (8.9%) on a year earlier, on 2,160,021 installations. That total covers every size of system, from home roofs to solar farms; the size bands below show where business roofs sit within it.

UK solar capacity and installations, year by year

DESNZ does not publish a "commercial" total. It splits capacity into six size bands. The two that matter most to commercial installers are 10 kW to under 50 kW (workshops, surgeries, small units, farm buildings) and 50 kW to under 5 MW (warehouses, factories and most commercial and industrial roofs). Both also include some homes, farms and small ground-mounted sites. Cumulative figures at the end of each year:

Source: DESNZ ET 6.3 Table 1, UK, published 29 October 2026. The September 2026 row is provisional.

Since the end of 2015 the 10 to 50 kW band has tripled in capacity (616 MW to 1,964 MW) and almost quadrupled in number (24,255 to 94,885). The 50 kW to 5 MW band doubled too, but three quarters of that growth came in 2016 and 2017 (our calculations). The earlier years, and all six bands, are in the CSV above.

New capacity added each year, by band

The difference between one year end and the next shows what was actually built (net of revisions). This is where the two commercial bands go separate ways.

Source: DESNZ ET 6.3 Table 1, UK (our calculation: year end minus the year end before).

The 10 to 50 kW band added 15,072 installations and 261 MW in 2025, the most of any calendar year in a series that starts in 2010. The 50 kW to 5 MW band has added between 78 MW and 88 MW a year since 2022, against more than 1,000 MW a year in 2015 and 2016. Across all sizes, DESNZ says the 269,500 installations of 2025 were the most in any calendar year, and the 2.7 GW added was the most since 2015. In the 12 months to September 2026 the 10 to 50 kW band added 19,983 installations, more than in any 12 months before (our calculation, provisional).

The last 12 months, month by month

New installations each month in the two commercial bands, with the UK total for scale. The most recent months are provisional and usually revised up as late registrations arrive.

Source: DESNZ ET 6.3 Table 1, UK (our calculation: month end minus the month end before).

From January to September 2026 the 10 to 50 kW band added 16,179 installations, against 11,268 in the same nine months of 2025, a rise of 44% (our calculation, both from the same release). September 2026 added 2,206, up 52% on September 2025, and June to September 2026 are the four busiest months for the band since 2010 by number of installations. The 50 kW to 5 MW band added 265 against 386. DESNZ often hears about larger sites months after they are built, so the recent months of that band are the most likely to rise. During September 2026 alone there were 27,655 installations of all sizes, totalling 145 MW.

Domestic and non-domestic solar

DESNZ records whether each installation is on a domestic property, using the MCS database and Ofgem's Central FiT Register. Everything else is "not recorded as domestic", which includes solar farms, farms, public buildings and businesses.

Source: DESNZ ET 6.3 Table 1, UK, "of which: domestic" row; the rest is our calculation.

Homes are 82% of installations but 31% of capacity (our calculation for September 2026). Be careful with the non-domestic count: of the 296,086 installations in the year to September 2026, 96,293 were not recorded as domestic, but only 20,393 of the year's installations were 10 kW or larger (our calculation). So a large part of the non-domestic count is small systems whose property type was not recorded. It is not a count of businesses.

Solar generation and share of UK electricity

Capacity is what is installed; generation is what it produced. DESNZ's renewables table (ET 6.1) gives both, plus the load factor (output as a share of what the capacity could produce running flat out all year).

Source: DESNZ ET 6.1, Annual sheet, published 29 September 2026.

Solar generation rose 34% in 2025 to 20.1 TWh (our calculation), with more capacity installed and the load factor up from 9.2% to 11.1%. In April to June 2026, solar generated 8,434 GWh, 12.3% of UK electricity; DESNZ says it was "stable on last year, but broadly matched last year's record high". Renewables as a whole reached a record 55.8% share that quarter, and solar PV was about three quarters of the renewable capacity added in the year to June 2026.

ET 6.1 puts UK solar capacity at 21,915 MW at the end of 2025, a little below ET 6.3's 22,084 MW for December 2025. Both are DESNZ; they are compiled on different timetables and revised separately. This page uses ET 6.3 for capacity and ET 6.1 for generation.

Solar by support scheme

Table 2 of the same release splits capacity by the scheme each installation is accredited under. Since Feed-in Tariffs closed to new entrants in March 2019, new MCS installations are counted as "unaccredited", so that line is where almost every new commercial roof now sits.

Source: DESNZ ET 6.3 Table 2, UK, September 2026. Closure dates from the ET 6.3 notes and commentary; shares are our calculation.

DESNZ also estimates that at least 38% of capacity (8.8 GW) is ground-mounted or standalone, and that roughly 59% of all capacity is ground mount once around half of the unaccredited capacity is counted in. That leaves roughly 41% on roofs and other sites that are not ground-mounted (our calculation from DESNZ's estimate).

Solar by country and region

DESNZ added a regional table (Table 4) in August 2026. Capacity includes solar farms, which is why the South West leads and why its average installation is large. The average size column is a rough guide to how much of a region's solar is big sites rather than homes.

Source: DESNZ ET 6.3 Table 4. Average size and changes are our calculation.

By country, England holds 20,111 MW on 1,720,965 installations (the sum of its nine regions, our calculation), Wales 1,836 MW, Scotland 939 MW and Northern Ireland 425 MW. A further 91 MW and 19,081 installations are not yet allocated to a region, up from 2,812 a year earlier, so the latest regional growth figures are slightly understated. For capacity added in megawatts by region, see our UK commercial solar market guide.

Official scenarios to 2030 and 2035

These are the only projections on this page, and they are the government's, quoted as published. The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan seeks 45 to 47 GW of solar in Great Britain by 2030. The Solar Roadmap (June 2025) sets out three illustrative scenarios for Great Britain:

• Business as usual: capacity "reaches c.30GW in 2030 ... and around 45-50 GW by 2035".
• Current policy (upper end): 45 to 47 GW in 2030 "and 75GW by 2035".
• Further rooftop barriers removed: "in excess of 50GW by 2030, and around 85GW by 2035".

On commercial roofs specifically, the Roadmap says that under the current policy scenario "around 15%-20%" of 2030 capacity could be "commercial rooftop and ground mount", and that "removing barriers for rooftop deployment could increase ... commercial rooftop and ground mount to more than 10GW by 2030". It adds that the scenarios "do not reflect the full technical potential for solar deployment (especially commercial rooftop)".

What these statistics miss

• Some smaller commercial roofs. In DESNZ's words, the statistics "do not currently include all unsubsidised solar installations below 150 kW capacity that are not recorded in these data sources". A 60 to 150 kW roof installed without MCS registration may be missing.
• Late reporting. The latest month is always provisional and DESNZ may not hear about a new site until months after it is built.
• Revisions to past years. DESNZ has been working with external partners since November 2025 to find operational sites it had not been told about, and says it "identified approximately 1.2 GW of additional capacity which was included in December's publication". In October 2025 it also switched MCS installations to total installed capacity and removed 40,000 installations wrongly recorded as solar. Figures from older releases will not match this page.
• Band changes. The bands on this page are the ones DESNZ moved to in December 2025, so a 5 MW site counts in the 5 to under 25 MW band. Use one release for comparisons over time, as this page does.
• Businesses. There is no official count of businesses with solar (see the domestic section above).
• MCS data. The MCS Data Dashboard is an interactive app that we could not read as data, so it is not used here.

What the numbers mean for installers

Three things stand out. Small commercial (10 to 50 kW) is the fastest-growing part of the market by number of jobs, and 2025 was its biggest year on record. The larger commercial band (50 kW to 5 MW) is a market of a few hundred recorded installations a year, and its installations average around 450 kW each (our calculation), so every qualified conversation with a building owner counts. And solar's share of UK electricity is still rising, which keeps business energy bills, not subsidies, at the centre of the pitch.

For what those trends mean for finding and winning work, read our UK commercial solar market guide, which also covers business electricity prices, planning rules and the sectors the Roadmap names. If you sell through funders, see commercial solar PPAs; for public sector work, solar tenders and frameworks; and for building a target list from public data, commercial solar prospecting.

TNW Marketing books pre-qualified, exclusive commercial solar site meetings with the decision-maker for UK installers, paid per attended appointment with no retainer. See pay per appointment commercial solar leads for how it works, or weigh us against the alternatives in our commercial solar leads UK supplier and price comparison.