We just launched SolarUK — a free live dashboard showing GB solar generation in megawatts, updated every 5 minutes. NASA postcode calculator. UK peak sun hours by city. All-time GB solar records. And the honest answer to whether England and Great Britain are actually good places for solar panels.
There's a number I check every morning
Before email. Before anything.
I open a browser tab and look at how much solar Great Britain is generating right now. A number in megawatts. A chart showing today's curve so far. A bar telling me how close we are to the all-time record.
It became a habit after the April records. 14,426 MW on the 22nd, broken the very next day by 15,420 MW. Watching the number climb on a clear morning and knowing that every solar panel in Britain — every roof installation from Cornwall to Aberdeen, every balcony system bolted to a south-facing railing in East London — is contributing to that figure.
The problem was I had to dig for the data. The Sheffield Solar PV_Live feed is excellent — it's what NESO uses for real-time grid balancing — but it's not built for people who just want a clean number and a chart.
So we built the page we wanted.
SolarUK is live now at sunhours.app/solaruk →
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What's on it
Open SolarUK and the first thing you see is the live MW counter. Big number. Updates every 5 minutes. Sol's expression changes based on what the grid is doing — calm and content on a drizzly 1,200 MW Tuesday; beaming at full wattage on a 14,000 MW April record run.
Below the main number: a progress bar comparing current output to the UK all-time record (15,420 MW, 23 April 2026). Today's half-hourly generation curve. Six stat panels — homes currently powered by solar, CO₂ avoided today, capacity factor, installed GB solar capacity, the data timestamp, and the live GW figure. A regional strip showing current MW by all 14 GB distribution areas.
All of it comes directly from Sheffield Solar PV_Live. No estimates. The same feed NESO uses.
Scroll down and the page becomes a reference resource.
The NASA POWER postcode calculator. Enter any UK postcode. Pick your system size. It queries NASA's satellite irradiance dataset — specifically the ALLSKY_SFC_SW_DWN climatology — for your precise GPS coordinates and returns your annual peak sun hours, a month-by-month generation breakdown, estimated annual kWh output, projected savings at your chosen electricity rate, CO₂ offset, and payback period in years. Works for every postcode from TR1 in Truro to IV63 near Loch Ness.
Peak sun hours by UK city. A full reference table from Penzance at the top (3.21 hrs/day) down to Inverness at the bottom (2.18 hrs/day), with estimated annual output and savings for a standard 4kWp system at each location. Seventeen cities. Every major region.
Live regional breakdown. All 14 GB distribution network areas with current MW output updated in real time. South West, South East, East of England, Midlands, Yorkshire, North West, North East, Wales, Scotland — you can see which regions are carrying the load right now.
The UK solar records table. Every major GB generation milestone in one place. The April 2026 double-record week. The previous spring records going back to 2022. The dates, the MW figures, the percentage of grid covered.
The best time to install solar in the UK. A month-by-month guide covering installer demand, quote competitiveness, generation during the installation month, and why December and January are genuinely good months to lock in a quote even though it feels counterintuitive.
Balcony and plug-in solar UK. The regulatory landscape (BS 7671 Amendment 4, in force April 2026), the current UK market, a Germany vs UK comparison, and the economics of an 800W plug-in system vs rooftop solar.
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But is the UK actually good for solar?
This question sits underneath everything. It rains a lot. It's grey. Surely we're not a solar country. Why would any of this apply to Britain?
Here's what the data actually says.
The UK averages 2.2 to 3.2 peak sun hours per day depending on location. Cornwall leads at 3.21. London averages 2.97. Bristol 2.92. Birmingham 2.76. Manchester 2.61. Leeds 2.55. Sheffield 2.57. Newcastle 2.48. Edinburgh 2.42. Glasgow 2.34. Even Inverness averages 2.18.
Now compare Germany. Germany has over 1.5 million balcony solar systems, 60 GW of total installed capacity, and the most mature residential solar market in Europe. Germany averages 2.5 to 3.5 peak sun hours per day depending on region.
The UK is directly comparable to Germany in solar resource. Not identical — southern Germany gets more sun than northern Scotland — but the UK's best areas (South West, South East, Wales) match or exceed Germany's worst. Manchester and Frankfurt are in the same solar bracket.
The difference has never been sunlight. It's been cost, policy, and cultural inertia. All three are shifting fast.
April proved it. 15,420 MW at midday on 23 April 2026. 42% of Great Britain's entire electricity demand from sunlight in a single moment, in a country that supposedly doesn't get enough sun to make solar viable. England, Wales, and Scotland powering a modern economy from their rooftops on a spring Tuesday.
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Is England specifically a good place for solar?
England is the best-resourced part of the UK for solar by a meaningful margin.
The South West (Cornwall, Devon, Somerset) gets the most irradiance — TR postcodes average 3.21 peak sun hours/day, closer to northern France than northern Scotland. The South East (Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire) runs close at 3.08. East of England (East Anglia) benefits from lower cloud cover than the west and averages 2.94.
Even the Midlands and Yorkshire — which nobody thinks of as solar hotspots — are generating real returns. A 4kWp system in Birmingham generates approximately 3,562 kWh/year and saves around £927 annually. In Sheffield: 3,606 kWh, £938/year. In Leeds: 3,473 kWh, £903/year.
The honest summary: if you own your home in England, live in Wales, or are in the Scottish central belt, the economics of solar work. They don't work as well as Spain or Portugal. They work better than most people assume, and better than Germany which already has 60 GW of it.
Enter your postcode in the SolarUK calculator and get your personal numbers.
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Where the data comes from
Everything on SolarUK is open and cited.
Live generation: Sheffield Solar PV_Live, University of Sheffield. The same feed NESO uses for real-time grid management. Updated every 5 minutes. Regional breakdown from all 14 GB Distribution Network Operator (DNO) areas.
Postcode calculator: NASA POWER satellite irradiance climatology (ALLSKY_SFC_SW_DWN). NASA's dataset aggregates decades of satellite measurements to give accurate irradiance figures at any latitude and longitude — including every UK postcode.
Postcode coordinates: postcodes.io — open, free, and comprehensive. Every UK postcode mapped to GPS.
Records: NESO Historic GB Generation Mix. Solar Energy UK. Ember.
Nothing estimated. Nothing rounded. The numbers are the numbers.
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What this has to do with the Sun Hours app
SolarUK answers the national question: how is GB doing right now?
Sun Hours answers your personal question: how is my roof doing today?
They're built to work together. When SolarUK shows GB hitting 14,000 MW and climbing, your panels are having a strong day too. When Sun Hours shows your 7-day forecast peaking on Thursday, that's probably the day the national grid will see its highest output of the week as well.
The NASA calculator on SolarUK gives you your annual kWh estimate — your baseline. The Sun Hours app takes that same calculation and turns it into a daily, hourly, personalised forecast updated with live weather data every morning. SolarUK tells you what the grid is doing. Sun Hours tells you what your roof is doing.
Free. No account. No signup. Sol's ready. ☀️
See GB solar live right now — no account, no signup
SolarUK is free and open at sunhours.app/solaruk. The MW counter updates every 5 minutes straight from Sheffield Solar PV_Live. Drop your postcode in the NASA POWER calculator to see exactly how many kWh your roof could generate. Then grab Sun Hours on Android for a daily personalised forecast — so you always know when your best solar window is open.
Get it on Google Play →