Solar Media Market Research analyst Josh Cornes follows the British solar installations from the first half of 2025, with almost the same amount of installed capacity growth in the last six months as a whole 2024.
The VK completed more than 2GWP in 2025, the best start of the year for 10 years, and wants to continue with 3.7 GWP land mounting at the Nutsbedrijf Solar PV under construction.
At the beginning of the year I estimate that in between 3GW and 3.5GWP would be added to the British market in 2025. With the completion of Cleve Hill and the residential roof that is stronger than originally expected, the UK has already increased beyond 2GWP.
The ground confirmation continues to make up for more than 70% of the capacity, with more than 1.5 GWP completed. This is massively stimulated by the first Solar National Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) Cleve Hill (373 MW) that is completed. This is, like 14 other sites 50MWP or higher, also completed, so that more than 60% of the added capacity is decided, with low carbon and NextEnergy recently stimulating more than 400 MWp in between.
Figure 1: annual UK Ground Mount Operational Capacity demolished by capacity sizes, which sketch the push and need for large -scale solar -zonne energy.
As we can see from Figure 1, populated with data from Solar Media Market Research, large -scale solar energy (> 50 MWP) dominates the market and it does not matter far from 70% of the capacity that was built in 2025, a trend that has been increasing year by year (YOY) since 2018.
With another 1 GW that started with construction and standard Build-Out times between 30-60 weeks more than a year ago, there is potential for soil confirmation to complete more than double the quantity that will be seen in 2024.
The commercial roof has, as expected, remained stable, to be a good start ~ 20% higher.
With the government that supports a residential roof with large stimuli such as the new Buildmandate here detailedContinuous support has definitely had a major impact on the roof as a whole, with new announcements of another £ 10 million that are assigned, here detailed.
Utility Scale Solar entries increase
Entries for Utility scale Sun farms have not been seen on heights before. With more than 7GWP so far submitted this year and more than 5GW submitted in Q2, this was the best first half of the year in history, with Q2 the best quarter for submissions.
Figure 2: Solar entries continue to rise in 2025, with Q2 submitting the highest capacity in history.
As expected, this is largely driven by projects at government level, whereby more than 3GW has been presented to their relevant governments in the last 3 months. A total of 12 projects with a combined capacity of 6.6 GWP have been submitted to the planning inspection since the Labor Government took over.
It’s Hard, However, To Tell If the Uptick In Solar Nsips Enterting the Planning System Since the Election is AS A Result of Improved Developer Confidence Following Miliband’s Quick Development Consent Order (DCO) Approvals and Supportive Plan Power, or Theer Teethmentment Sone T TESTING TESTING TESTING TESTING Later.
Submissions at the Local Planning Authority (LPA) level are also strong, which have submitted more than 3GWP in H1, but this will only lead to more Press the waiting times of the decision.
Although submissions have always been high, in which developers submit their gate 2 requests for grid connections, the majority has already planned their projects. That is why it is expected that the next three months will be quiet, giving LPAs the opportunity to catch up with the existing 8GWP that they still have to approve.
Refusals are something else that must be viewed, with 14 projects, in total more than 750 MW, which were refused in 2025. With almost 90 projects of a total of almost 2.6 GW have been approved at LPA level, more than 20% of the capacity that was decided this year has been refused.
Refusals are also seen in the professional phase. Although the year began with all the first 14 LPA refusals that were approved on appeal, 3 of the last 6 projects that have now been included have now been refused, with Wood Lodge Solar Farm in Northhamptonshire the last refusal. With 24 projects (1.3 GW) currently on appeal and another 20 (1GW) that will probably submit a profession, let’s hope that this trend will not take place.
The VK has surpassed 22GWP operational capacity, with almost 14 GW only from the ground confirmation. 2025 secures records with planning entries, both at LPA and at the government level. Returning the Labor Government starts to point solar energy in the right direction, but there are bumps in the road that must iron, with the planning that is slow, the grid is a major problem and resources when it comes to building this large pipeline that an elephant is in the room.
All the above data comes from the analysis of Solar Media Market Research, which is accessiblehere.
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