Solar Installation in Winchester — CRG Direct Renewable Solutions

Overview of renewable energy solutions for Winchester

CRG Direct designs and installs solar PV systems, battery storage, air source heat pumps and EV chargers across Hampshire and the South Coast. We've been doing it since 2017, we're MCS certified and NICEIC approved, and our own installation team does the work rather than a subcontracted crew.

Rising energy costs have made the case for solar panels in Winchester far easier to make than it was five years ago. Lower energy bills and a smaller carbon footprint come from the same investment, and for most households the payback arrives well inside the life of the system.

Winchester is a harder place to install solar than most of Hampshire, and it's worth being straight about why. The district has over twenty conservation areas, a cathedral city core dense with listed buildings, Article 4 directions on some properties that strip out permitted development rights entirely, and — the part most installers miss — two separate planning authorities.

That heritage sensitivity doesn't rule solar out. Winchester City Council actively encourages domestic solar PV and publishes its own guidance on it. What it means is that the design has to be led by the constraint rather than dropped onto the roof and argued about afterwards.

We work with homeowners and with businesses across the district — from Victorian terraces in Fulflood and St Cross to industrial units on Winnall and commercial premises around Whiteley. Helping homeowners here usually starts with working out what the constraints actually are, then finding the best solution inside them.

Get a free quote or call 0333 253 3531.

Solar panel installation & local solar panel installers

Free survey and bespoke system design. An engineer visits, measures the roof, checks the structure and covering, and assesses shading through the year rather than on the day. We then model expected generation for your specific orientation, pitch and shading, set it against your actual electricity use, and quote a fixed, itemised price. No charge, no obligation.

Mounting options:

• Pitched tile and slate — in-roof or on-roof mounting. On-roof is standard; in-roof sits the panels flush within the roof plane and is frequently the design that gets consent in a conservation area because the array reads as part of the roof rather than as something added to it.
• Natural slate — slate hooks rather than standard hooks, and a slater's approach to lifting and re-dressing. Common on Winchester's older housing stock.
• Flat roofs — ballasted tilt frames that don't penetrate the membrane, or east-west racking to fit more capacity onto the same area. Standard on commercial units and on domestic extensions.
• Ground-mount — where roof space is unsuitable, shaded, or visually constrained. Subject to its own planning rules.

Certifications. MCS certified, NICEIC approved, HIES registered. MCS certification is what makes your system eligible for the Smart Export Guarantee and it's required for grant-funded work — check any installer on the public MCS register before signing, including us.

Warranties. Panels typically carry a 25-year performance warranty and solar panels installed properly will run well past that. Inverters are usually 10–12 years with paid extensions available. Batteries carry a manufacturer warranty on cycles and capacity retention, commonly around ten years. Our own workmanship guarantee covers the installation itself, backed by HIES.

Panel installers in Winchester — what to expect

1. On-site survey. Roof measurement, structural check, covering condition, shading assessment, consumer unit and earthing inspection, and confirmation of which planning authority covers the property. On period properties we also check whether the roof covering can take fixings before anything else is discussed.

2. System modelling. We combine the survey measurements with satellite and aerial imagery to build an accurate array layout and a shading profile across the year. The imagery gets us the geometry; the site visit gets us everything the imagery can't see — rafter condition, tile type, access, and the tree that's only a problem in December. Neither is sufficient alone, which is why we won't quote from imagery only.

3. Installation day. Scaffolding goes up first, usually the day before. The crew fits the mounting system, lays the panels, runs DC cabling to the inverter position, installs the inverter, isolators and any battery, and connects into the consumer unit. Most domestic installs are one to two days on site.

4. Commissioning and handover. Full electrical testing to BS 7671, generation verification, inverter configured to the correct DNO grid settings, MCS registration, and monitoring set up on your phone. You get the test certificates, the MCS certificate, DNO paperwork and a walkthrough before we leave.

Battery storage, EV chargers and system integration

Why storage matters. Solar generates around midday; households use electricity morning and evening. Without a battery you export roughly half your generation and buy it back later at three to four times the export rate. Storage lifts self-consumption from around 35–50% to 70–85%, and that gap is where the money is.

Sizing. Size against your actual half-hourly consumption, not against your array. Rough guide:

EV chargers. 7 kW smart chargers that talk to your inverter and prioritise surplus solar, topping up from the grid only when generation drops. Charging on your own generation instead of at 25p+ a unit is one of the quickest returns in the whole setup. On a time-of-use tariff the car, the house and the battery all charge on the cheap overnight rate.

Hybrid setups with heat pumps. A heat pump raises your electricity demand substantially, which strengthens the case for both a larger array and storage. The three work together: panels generate, the battery shifts it to when the heat pump actually runs, and a time-of-use tariff covers the rest. Designed together this works well. Bolted on one at a time over five years, it usually means paying twice for the same electrical work.

Heat pump & green renewables package

Air source heat pumps run at efficiencies of roughly 300–400% — three to four units of heat out for every unit of electricity in — and keep working at outdoor temperatures well below freezing. They suit properties currently on oil or electric heating best, which in the Winchester district means a lot of the rural villages off the mains gas network.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme currently pays £7,500 towards an air source heat pump, rising to £9,000 for homes currently heated by oil or LPG between 21 July 2026 and 31 March 2027. Your installer claims it and takes it off the price.

Heat pumps and solar self-consumption. A heat pump turns surplus solar into stored heat rather than cheap exports. Run it during the day when the array is generating and you're heating the house on electricity you'd otherwise have sold at a fraction of its value. With a battery in the mix you can also run it on overnight off-peak import.

Fabric first. A heat pump into a poorly insulated house is an expensive mistake. Loft and cavity insulation, draught-proofing and adequate ventilation come first — ventilation particularly, because tightening a period property without addressing airflow causes condensation and damp. We'll tell you at survey if the fabric needs work before the plant does.

Taken together — insulation, solar, storage, heat pump, EV charging — that's a green renewables retrofit rather than a series of one-off purchases, and it's usually cheaper done as a planned sequence than as five separate jobs.

Energy costs, savings, payback and grants

Generation. Winchester sits in one of the better parts of the country for solar. A well-sited roof produces in the region of 1,000–1,070 kWh per kWp per year, so a 4 kWp array generates roughly 3,850–4,150 kWh annually depending on orientation, pitch and shading.

Worked example — 4 kWp system:

System costs. Domestic installations start from £6,300 including the MCS certificate, mounting kit and HIES guarantee. What moves the number: array size, battery capacity, roof type and covering, scaffolding and access, and whether the consumer unit needs upgrading. All residential installs currently carry 0% VAT, running until 31 March 2027 before rising to 5%.

Grants.

• Warm Homes: Local Grant. Funds solar PV, battery storage, insulation and heat pumps for eligible households — up to £30,000, rising to £60,000 in rural areas, which covers much of the Winchester district outside the city. Broad eligibility is EPC D–G plus household income under £36,000 or qualifying benefits. Owner-occupied or privately rented, running to March 2028. Installers must be MCS certified.
• ECO4 and GBIS. Insulation and heating measures for eligible households; ECO4 runs to the end of 2026.
• Boiler Upgrade Scheme. £7,500 towards a heat pump, £9,000 for oil or LPG-heated homes until 31 March 2027.
• Solar Together Hampshire. Hampshire County Council's group-buying scheme. Registration is free and non-binding — worth registering alongside independent quotes so you can compare.
• HECA. Under the Home Energy Conservation Act, Winchester City Council publishes its plans for improving residential energy efficiency and signposts current local funding. Schemes change; check the council's energy pages or ask us.

How we help. We check eligibility at survey rather than after you've committed, and we support the application paperwork rather than handing you a leaflet.

Planning permission, listed buildings and grid connections

Which authority covers you? This is the first thing to establish and it catches people out. The South Downs National Park Authority is the planning authority for around 40% of the Winchester district — broadly the eastern and southern side, taking in the Meon Valley and the downland villages. Winchester City Council covers the other 60%. Two authorities, two sets of local policy, different weight on landscape and visual impact. We confirm which one applies at survey.

When you don't need planning permission. In most cases, roof-mounted solar on a house is permitted development — including within a conservation area — provided the panels project no more than 200mm beyond the roof plane, don't sit above the highest part of the roof, and aren't on a wall fronting a highway.

When you do.

• Wall-mounted panels on a wall fronting and visible from a highway need permission.
• Ground-mounted arrays visible from a highway, and most standalone installations on designated land, need permission.
• Article 4 directions. Winchester has Article 4 directions on some properties, which remove permitted development rights that would otherwise apply. If one covers your property, you need planning permission for work that your neighbour two streets away could do freely. This is checkable in advance and we check it.
• Listed buildings always need Listed Building Consent, regardless of where the panels go.

Listed Building Consent, briefly. It's a separate application from planning permission, submitted to the relevant authority, and it needs a heritage statement that engages properly with what makes the building significant. Consent is achievable — the approach that works is keeping panels off principal elevations, using rear or concealed slopes or a secondary building, and specifying all-black frames and rails rather than silver. Determination typically takes eight weeks or more. Pre-application advice is usually worth the fee on a sensitive property.

Grid connections — G98 and G99. Every system has to be notified to the DNO, which across Winchester is SSEN.

• G98 is a "connect and notify" route for small systems — up to 16A per phase, roughly 3.68 kW on a single-phase supply. Notification goes in after commissioning.
• G99 applies to anything larger, and to most solar-plus-battery combinations, because the battery's inverter output counts. This one is apply and wait — approval must be in place before the system energises, and it can take several weeks.

We handle the paperwork. Planning applications, Listed Building Consent submissions, heritage statements, G98 notifications and G99 applications. You don't chase any of it.

Process: from free quote to installation

1. Free, no-obligation quote. Start online at crgdirect.co.uk/quote or by phone.

2. Initial phone consultation. We discuss your property, your current energy use, what you're trying to achieve, and whether there are obvious constraints worth flagging before anyone travels. If solar doesn't make sense for your property we'd rather say so on the phone than after a survey.

3. On-site survey and design approval. Engineer visit, then a fixed itemised proposal with a modelled yield figure for your roof, self-consumption modelling with and without storage, and a payback estimate. You approve the design before anything is ordered.

4. Installation and commissioning. Roughly four to six weeks from approval to a commissioned system on a straightforward domestic project — most of that is DNO approval and scaffolding scheduling, not install. Add eight weeks or more where planning or Listed Building Consent is needed. The install itself is one to two days.

5. Aftercare. App-based monitoring from day one, warranty support, and optional maintenance covering electrical testing, mounting integrity, inverter health and battery state of health.

Commercial solar installation and B2B solutions

Proposals built around your energy profile. Commercial returns are driven almost entirely by self-consumption — how much of the generation you use on site rather than export. A unit running machinery from 8 to 5 gets a very different answer from a warehouse that's mostly lit and heated. We start from your half-hourly consumption data, not from your roof area.

Site energy surveys and ROI modelling. Structural survey on the roof (non-negotiable on flat commercial roofs — load capacity and covering condition first), consumption analysis, array design, and a model showing generation against demand hour by hour, with payback and return over the system life.

Winchester commercial context. Industrial and trade units on Winnall and Bar End, business premises around Whiteley, agricultural and equestrian buildings across the rural parishes, and hospitality and retail in the city. Large flat industrial roofs suit ballasted systems; agricultural buildings often have substantial south-facing spans with no shading at all.

Funding. Commercial solar is normally purchased outright or through the business's own lending arrangements, and capital allowances may apply — speak to your accountant about the tax treatment. We provide the generation and consumption modelling they'll need.

FAQ — solar panel installation questions for Winchester

How much does a solar installation cost in Winchester? Domestic systems start from £6,300 including MCS certification, mounting kit and HIES guarantee. Adding battery storage increases it, and roof type, access and scaffolding all move the figure. You get a fixed itemised quote after survey rather than a range.

Is my roof eligible? South-facing is best, but east and west roofs are perfectly viable and produce a flatter curve that often matches household use better. What matters more is usable area, structural condition, and shading. Chimneys, dormers, neighbouring buildings and mature trees all cost output — we measure shading at survey rather than estimating it from an aerial photo. Winchester's older housing stock also needs a roof covering check before anything else.

What about shading from trees? Reduced output, but often still worthwhile. Power optimisers or microinverters recover a good part of what a shaded string would otherwise lose. We model it properly and tell you the honest number.

What maintenance do solar panels need? Very little. Rain does most of the cleaning on a pitched roof; low-pitch and flat-roof arrays benefit from occasional washing, and never with abrasives or high pressure. The thing that actually matters is watching the monitoring — a system down 15% won't show clearly on a bill but will show in the app. A professional inspection every few years covers electrical testing, mounting integrity and inverter health.

Can I sell electricity back to the grid? Yes. All larger licensed suppliers must offer a Smart Export Guarantee tariff, so surplus generation earns money rather than being given away. Rates vary enormously between suppliers and switching to a better one is often worth a few hundred pounds a year — we keep a current comparison in our SEG tariff guide. You need an MCS-certified installation and a smart meter to qualify.

Do solar panels work in winter? Yes, at reduced output. Panels run on daylight rather than direct sun. The annual generation figures quoted above already account for a full UK year including December.

How long do panels last? Over 25 years. Performance warranties typically run to 25 years and panels commonly keep producing beyond that at slightly reduced output.

Why choose CRG Direct for renewable energy in Winchester

Residential and commercial. We work across both, which matters more than it sounds — the same team that sizes a battery for a three-bed semi also models half-hourly consumption for an industrial unit, and the domestic work stays sharp because of it.

Grant and retrofit experience. We check eligibility for the Warm Homes: Local Grant, ECO4, GBIS and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme at survey stage, and support the application. HECA-funded local schemes change from year to year; we track what's currently live rather than working from last year's leaflet.

Guarantees. MCS certified, NICEIC approved, HIES registered. Product warranties on panels, inverters and batteries, plus our own workmanship guarantee on the installation, backed by HIES deposit and guarantee protection.

Honest advice. If your roof doesn't suit solar, if the fabric needs attention before a heat pump, or if a battery won't pay for itself on your consumption pattern, we say so. A fair price on the right system beats a cheap price on the wrong one. Compare quotes properly — line by line on panel and inverter specification, not on headline price — and we're happy to be judged on that basis.

Sustainability is the reason a lot of people start looking. The economics are usually what makes the decision, and both point the same way.

Contact, coverage area and free quote

CRG Direct 172 Sea Front, Hayling Island, PO11 9HP Phone: 0333 253 3531 Email: info@crgdirect.co.uk Free quote: crgdirect.co.uk/quote

Book a no-obligation site survey. No charge, no pressure, and an engineer rather than a salesperson. Bring twelve months of electricity usage in kWh if you have it — or better, half-hourly data from your smart meter account. That's what lets us size storage properly and give you a realistic saving figure instead of a generic one.

Areas covered: Winchester city and the surrounding district — Fulflood, Hyde, St Cross, Weeke, Stanmore, Badger Farm, Olivers Battery, Winnall, Bar End, Kings Worthy, Littleton, Sparsholt, Twyford, Otterbourne, Colden Common, Alresford, Bishop's Waltham, Wickham, Denmead, Whiteley and the surrounding area, plus the wider Hampshire and South Coast region.

MCS Certified | HIES Certified | NICEIC Approved | Installing across Hampshire since 2017

Get your free quote or call 0333 253 3531 to discuss your project.