Solar panels · Cornwall

Solar panels in Cornwall

We design and fit solar panels and battery storage for homes across Cornwall, from Bude to Penzance. Our base is at Allerford Farm, Lewdown, near Okehampton, just off the A30 and about 3 miles from the Cornwall border as the crow flies. Every system starts with a free site survey, and our own installation team fits it.

Book a free site survey

Or call 07441 369 505

Aerial view of fields and a village on a headland above the sea on the Cornish coast, with the sun setting over the water
  • MCS certified, NICEIC Approved Contractor
  • RECC, Renewable Energy Consumer Code member
  • TrustMark registered
Conservation areas
145

conservation areas across Cornwall, by the council’s own count

Homes built before 1919
27.3%

of homes were built before 1919 (England 19.9%)

Listed buildings
12,664

listed buildings, by Cornwall Council’s count

Homes and roofs

Older homes, stone and slate

Cornwall’s homes are older than England’s as a whole: more than a quarter date from before 1919 (27.3%, against 19.9% across England). Cornwall Council’s guidance names stone, slate and render as local materials, and notes that the local style of slating is often wet or dry laid scantle.

Age and materials matter at the survey, which is a full assessment of your home, including which way the roof faces, what shades it and how much space it offers. Cornwall Council adds that building regulations apply to rooftop panels, because the roof’s strength must be assessed. We’ll go through what that means for your roof.

Planning and heritage

Planning rules for solar panels in Cornwall

Cornwall Council, a single unitary council since 1 April 2009, decides planning applications. Its solar planning page says homes can often have panels without planning permission, under national permitted development rules that were updated on 27 August 2026, and its Climate Emergency Development Plan Document says proposals for building-mounted solar ‘will be supported and encouraged wherever possible’.

Some designations add rules, and the council’s online constraint checker shows which cover a property. We’ll advise during your survey if permissions are needed.

  • 145 conservation areas, where extra rules apply to walls, flat roofs and free-standing panels.
  • 12,664 listed buildings, most densely in the north east: Launceston, the nearest Cornish town to our base, has 219 list entries in its parish.
  • The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, a World Heritage Site since 2006, in ten areas from St Just to the Tamar Valley.
  • The Cornwall National Landscape, 958 sq km or about 27% of Cornwall’s land, and the Tamar Valley National Landscape, 190 sq km along the border.

Distance from our base

Towns across Cornwall

Miles from Allerford Farm, Lewdown, as the crow flies.

The 18 Cornwall towns on our map, nearest first. Launceston is the closest at 6 miles and Penzance the farthest at 68.

  • Launceston6 mi
  • Callington10 mi
  • Liskeard17 mi
  • Bude19 mi
  • Camelford20 mi
  • Looe22 mi
  • Bodmin25 mi
  • Wadebridge28 mi
  • Padstow32 mi
  • St Austell33 mi
  • Newquay40 mi
  • Truro45 mi
  • Falmouth50 mi
  • Redruth52 mi
  • Camborne56 mi
  • Helston59 mi
  • St Ives62 mi
  • Penzance68 mi

Heating your home

Nearly half of homes are off the gas grid

47.0%

of Cornish homes have no mains gas connectionDESNZ

Without mains gas, many Cornish homes heat with oil or electricity instead: 47.0% have no gas connection in the government’s 2024 estimates (England 15.6%), and at the 2021 Census 13.8% of Cornish households heated with oil alone, against 3.2% in England, and 15.2% with electricity alone, against 8.7%.

Solar panels make electricity, not heat, so how you heat your home shapes the design. Panels produce nothing at night, and battery storage lets you use daytime electricity in the evening. We design around your use, not the biggest system your roof could hold.

The local grid

Connecting to Cornwall’s electricity network

Cornwall’s network is run by National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED), as part of its South West licence area. Your system may need approval from National Grid before we can connect it. This is called a G99 application. We handle the application for you and keep you updated while we wait for their response.

NGED’s May 2024 report says high levels of new connections across the South West, mainly battery storage and solar schemes, have triggered constraints on the transmission network. Those notes are mainly about large generation, not typical home systems.

Checked facts

9 verifiable local data points on this page.

  1. Distance to the borderThe nearest point of Cornwall’s boundary is 3.08 miles from our base at Allerford Farm, Lewdown, as the crow flies.planning.data.gov.uk (ONS boundary)
  2. Homes built before 1919The Valuation Office Agency counts 27.3% of Cornwall’s homes as built before 1919, against 19.9% across England.Valuation Office Agency
  3. Homes off the gas gridGovernment estimates for 2024 put 47.0% of Cornwall’s homes off the gas grid, against 15.6% across England.DESNZ
  4. Conservation areasCornwall has 145 conservation areas, according to Cornwall Council’s own dataset.Cornwall Council (data.gov.uk)
  5. Listed buildingsCornwall Council counts 12,664 listed buildings in Cornwall, with the greatest concentration in the north east of the county.Cornwall Council
  6. Cornwall National LandscapeThe Cornwall National Landscape covers 958 sq km of Cornwall in 12 separate sections.National Landscapes Association
  7. Mining World Heritage SiteUNESCO inscribed the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape as a World Heritage Site in 2006; it covers 19,709.4 hectares in ten areas.UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  8. Electricity network operatorCornwall is in National Grid Electricity Distribution’s South West licence area, listed as Distributor ID 22.Energy Networks Association
  9. Council solar planning adviceCornwall Council’s solar planning page says homes can often have solar panels without planning permission, and points to the 2026 Amendment Order to the national rules.Cornwall Council

Data last reviewed:

How we work

From the survey to the handover

From Lewdown we work across all of Devon and Cornwall; see every town we cover and our page on solar panels in Devon. After the survey, our solar panel installation for homes moves to design, using Easy PV Pro to work out the number of panels and the battery options. Our own installation team then fits the system, and homes usually take one to three days.

Every installation carries our 10-year workmanship warranty, separate from the manufacturers’ product warranties, and one year of The Solar Owners Club, including an annual system health check. We’re MCS certified, which an installation needs before its owner can receive export payments for electricity sent to the grid, under the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG).

Reviews

From Cornwall.

From members of The Solar Owners Club in Cornwall. You’ll find more reviews from across Devon and Cornwall, on Google, Trustpilot and Facebook, on our reviews page.

  • We've already saved the full membership cost in our battery upgrade alone! Great value for money.
    I&N, CornwallOwners Club member

Questions

Solar panels in Cornwall: your questions.

Usually not. Cornwall Council says homes can often have solar panels without planning permission, within national permitted development limits: on a pitched roof, panels must not sit above the highest part of the roof, excluding the chimney, or project more than 0.2 m from the slope. You can apply for a Lawful Development Certificate as written proof.

In Cornwall’s 145 conservation areas and in the World Heritage Site, panels on a wall, balcony or roof enclosure fronting a highway fall outside permitted development, and flat-roof installations need prior approval. Free-standing panels nearer a road than the house face tighter limits too. Cornwall Council says none of its Article 4 Directions remove permitted development rights for solar panels.

Only with consent. Cornwall Council says panels on a listed building need planning permission and listed building consent, and permitted development doesn’t cover a listed house or the buildings within its grounds. With 12,664 listed buildings in Cornwall, it’s worth checking early; we’ll advise during your survey.

It can. Covering 958 sq km in 12 sections, the Cornwall National Landscape is still an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in law. There, flat-roof installations need prior approval, as does free-standing solar within 5 m of the boundary, but the rule on walls fronting a highway doesn’t apply as it does in a conservation area.

National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED), through its South West licence area. A home system of fully type-tested equipment under 16 amps per phase connects under G98, a ‘fit and notify’ route with NGED told within 28 days of commissioning. Larger systems go through G99, and where an application is needed, we handle it for you.

Nearby

Solar panels nearby.

Also in Cornwall

Next steps

Let’s talk about your project

Wherever you live in Cornwall, solar panels start with one question: what suits your home? We’ll look at your roof, how you heat your home and any planning designations with you, then design a system around the way you use electricity. Book a free site survey, or call us.

Call us07441 369 505

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Allerford Farm, Lewdown, Okehampton, Devon EX20 4PU
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