Solar panels in Manchester: are they worth it?

If you’re lucky enough to live among the gorgeous Pennines, stunning nature reserves, and irresistible culture of Manchester, and you’d like to cut your energy bills, solar panels might be the answer.

From Woodford to Wardle, Manchester gets enough sunlight for solar homes to cut their electricity bills by hundreds of pounds every year.

In this guide, we’ll explain how much solar panels cost in Edinburgh, how the city’s cloudy weather affects them, and which government grants could help you reduce the upfront cost.

We install in Manchester, so if you’re wondering how much you could save with a solar & battery system, enter a few details below and we’ll provide an estimate.

What are the best installers in Manchester?

1. Sunsave

At Sunsave, our mission is to make solar accessible to all UK households, which has led us to create the first solar subscription service in the UK.

Sunsave Plus comes with no upfront cost. Instead, you’ll pay a totally fixed monthly fee, which allows you to start saving on your energy bills immediately.

We’ll provide you with the best-in-class kit, expert advice on which of the best export tariffs you should choose, and we’ll always be a phone call or email away for the entire length of your contract.

We mean it, too. Every Sunsave Plus system is covered by the 20-year Sunsave Guarantee, which comes with 24/7 monitoring, maintenance, a free battery upgrade, a free inverter replacement (if required), and downtime cover.

And your system will be insured by Aviva against damage, fire, and theft.

Our customers are massive fans of our work, as proven by the 200+ five-star ratings they’ve given us on Trustpilot, with reviews that praise our friendly, helpful, pressure-free attitude.

To find out more, read our reviews page.

2. Spectra Solar

Spectra Solar is based in Wigan, but helps homes go solar from Birmingham all the way up to Harrogate, going as far west as Blackpool and Wrexham, and as far east as Hull and Skegness.

The company, which is run by the Wilcock family, is one of the few installers we’ve covered that has the Which? Trusted Trader status to go with its other accreditations.

With more than 130 practically perfect Google reviews, the installer is performing well in all the most important areas. Its website puts this success down to “a customer-first approach.”

It continues: “We are all about being open and honest. We don’t employ ANY sales reps. No hard sales. No discount if you sign there and then. No 1990s double glazing sales tactics!”

For homes that have already switched to solar, the site also provides a free tool that can diagnose a malfunctioning inverter, which speaks to how seriously the firm takes customer service.

Spectra Solar can also help you to get financing through a credit broker – though it doesn’t offer a solar subscription.

3. Greentech Renewables

Greentech Renewables started life in 2020 as SG Home Services, during the UK’s worst year for domestic solar installations since records began in 2010.

Despite starting in such difficult conditions, the Bolton-based installer has thrived in the years since, and has amassed around 100 five-star reviews on Trustpilot.

Customers routinely praise the company’s knowledgeable, helpful office staff and professional, friendly installation team.

The company also takes ‘family-run’ to a new level, with its directors including John, Liam, and Sam Greenhalgh, plus Gina and Andy Park.

Like Spectra Solar, Greentech Renewables doesn’t have a solar subscription option, but does offer finance to help pay for its solar installations, through a credit broker.

How much do solar panels cost in Manchester?

It costs £7,845 to buy a 4.5 kilowatt-peak (kWp) solar panel system and have it installed in Manchester, on average, according to MCS data.

How much you pay will vary depending on several factors though, including the system’s size, the complexity of the installation, which installer you go with, and where you live in Manchester.

We've also shown roughly how much it costs to add a 5kWh battery to your installation, because this can substantially boost your savings.

A battery enables you to use more of the electricity your panels produce, cut how much electricity you buy from the grid, and lower your energy bills.

It creates new opportunities too, such as signing up to one of the best export tariffs around, joining a time-of-use import tariff that allows you to buy electricity for a cheap, overnight rate, and benefiting from grid flexibility services like virtual power plants.

These significant advantages have led to around 94% of new solar panel installations across the UK including a battery, according to data from Flexi-Orb and the Energy Performance Validation Scheme (EPVS).

We install in Manchester, so if you’re wondering how much you could save with a solar & battery system, enter a few details below and we’ll provide an estimate.

Are there any grants for solar panels in Manchester?

Manchester currently has a couple of local programmes that make it easier for residents to get solar panels.

But the county’s focus has mainly switched to equipping public properties with solar panels.

In 2025, the UK government gave funding to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to pay for solar installations on public buildings, including sports centres in Stockport, Salford, and Rochdale.

And this is just a small part of the GMCA’s wider work to decarbonise the area. The £28 million Public Building Retrofit Fund will run from 2025 to 2028, to help the authority reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2038.

Home Energy Loan Plan

The Home Energy Loan Plan (HELP) provides interest-free loans worth up to £10,000 to homeowners and some private landlords for heating system upgrades and energy-efficient home improvements, including solar panels.

This Manchester City Council scheme is administered by a charity called Manchester Care & Repair, which does unfortunately add administrative fees to the loans.

A 10-year £10,000 loan, for example, comes with an initial charge of £200 and a yearly cost of £64 per year of borrowing – which would add up to £840 in fees.

Solar Together Manchester

Solar Together draws on the power of collective buying to secure cheaper prices for residents and business owners in a certain area who are looking to switch to solar.

The initiative, run by Dutch company iChoosr, has negotiated 30-35% discounts on the standard market rate in Essex and Bristol.

And when it came to Manchester in 2019, more than 2,000 households signed up for the scheme, which has been running for around a decade.

You can participate in Solar Together if you’re a homeowner, a small or medium-sized business owner, or a tenant – assuming you have permission from your landlord.

It moves around the country, running programmes in different areas for limited stretches of time, so watch out for when it returns to Manchester.

National grants

Homes in Manchester can take advantage of a national solar panel grant, which we’ve explained below.

This funding is aimed at underprivileged, energy-inefficient households though, with strict eligibility criteria.

To find out which grants you could be eligible for, use our grant eligibility checker.

How many homes in Manchester have solar panels?

45,200 homes in Manchester have solar panels, according to government data from September 2025.

That means just 3.8% of Greater Manchester’s 1,178,246 households have made the switch. 

While that’s lower than the UK average of 5.5%, it’s miles ahead of London, where 1.7% of homes have gone solar, and significantly higher than Birmingham, where the rate is 2.7%.

Considering Manchester usually receives less daylight over a year than both of these cities, Mancunians seem to have realised that going solar can cut your energy bills – even when the weather isn’t perfect.

Is Manchester sunny enough for solar panels?

Manchester is definitely sunny enough for solar panels.

When it comes to ‘solar irradiance’ – which is the term for the sun’s intensity in a specific area – the home of Oasis and Joy Division is very similar to large parts of the rest of the UK.

Solar irradiance is the amount of energy that makes it from the sun to a particular spot on Earth, and is measured in kilowatt-hours per square metre.

The higher the solar irradiance is where you are, the more daylight your panels can turn into electricity, and the more you’ll save on your energy bills.

Dunsop Bridge, a village in Lancashire that the Ordnance Survey has said is the geographic centre of Britain, receives around 850kWh per m².

This is according to the European Commission's Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS), which regularly updates its solar irradiance figures.

You’ll get around 2.2% less in Manchester, but that’s still more than enough to massively cut your electricity bills with solar.

Advances in solar and battery technology have made going solar worthwhile across the UK, even in places that get lower than average amounts of daylight.

Typical solar panel output in Manchester

A 4.6kWp solar panel system will generate 3,257kWh of electricity per year in Manchester, according to the European Commission’s PVGIS tool.

That should be enough for you to power most of your annual electricity consumption with solar energy, as the average UK household uses 3,400kWh per year.

We’ve used a 4.6kWp array because it was the average UK system size in 2024, according to the MCS, and we went for a 35° roof as it’s a standard angle for UK roofs.

Our calculations are also based on the system being west-facing, so if you have a south-facing roof, you could generate even more solar electricity – 4,111kWh, to be exact.

These numbers show how successful solar installations can be in Manchester now, thanks to modern systems.

Your output won’t be identical all year round – in fact, your panels will usually generate more electricity than you need in summer. If you sign up to a solar export tariff, you can sell all of this excess energy to the grid.

This will provide you with a financial buffer during winter, when your panels will be less productive and you’ll have to buy more grid electricity.

Is it worth getting solar panels in Manchester?

It’s absolutely worth getting solar panels in Manchester, despite the area’s cloudy, rainy reputation.

Irradiance levels in this cultural powerhouse are lower than the UK average, but a solar panel system can still generate more than enough electricity for you to make an excellent return on your investment.

You can save hundreds of pounds per year by going solar, which is probably why tens of thousands of homes in Manchester have already made the switch.

If the upfront cost puts you off, you may be able to get a fully funded solar & battery system through ECO4, but most households won’t qualify.

If that includes you, it’s worth looking at Sunsave Plus, our all-in-one, bespoke residential solar and battery solution that’s delivered as a monthly subscription with no upfront cost.

Every system comes with the Sunsave Guarantee, which includes 24/7 monitoring, maintenance, a free battery upgrade, a free replacement inverter (if needed), and downtime cover.

Your system will also be insured by Aviva against damage, fire, and theft.

We install in Manchester, so if you’re wondering how much you could save with a solar & battery system, enter a few details below and we’ll provide an estimate.

Solar panels in Manchester: FAQs