Who publishes this site
Solar Panels for Churches is published by SEO Dons Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16766013). We are a specialist information and assessment service. We do not install solar panels, we hold no installer accreditations of our own, and we have no completed installations to show you — anyone telling you otherwise on a website like this one should be asked for evidence.
What we do have is the part most parishes find hardest to get: a clear, current and genuinely independent read of how faculty jurisdiction works, which grant schemes a particular building can realistically draw on, and whether the numbers stack up before a PCC commits to anything.
What we will and will not do
- We will prepare a free desk-based feasibility assessment from your bills and roof plans, and give you a PCC-ready written report inside seven working days.
- We will tell you plainly when solar does not make sense for your building. A north-facing nave roof on a Sunday-only church is the case we most often advise against.
- We will cite our sources and date our figures, so your treasurer can check them.
- We will not operate a lead auction or pass your details to multiple installers. If you want introductions to accredited contractors we will ask you first.
- We will not add you to a marketing list or call you unsolicited.
- We will not claim installs, reviews, accreditations or a track record we do not have.
Why church solar is not commercial solar
A generalist commercial installer does most of their work on warehouses, schools and office roofs, where the economics are well understood, the permitting is Permitted Development and the client is a facilities manager used to commercial procurement. Almost nothing about a parish church matches that template:
- The decision-maker is volunteer-led — a PCC of lay parishioners, often with no facilities-management background, deciding by consensus
- The capital is constrained — many parishes run annual deficits and depend on grants for major works
- The permitting is bespoke — faculty jurisdiction and DAC consultation for Anglican churches, with Historic England engagement and sometimes SPAB or the Victorian Society on listed fabric
- The fabric is heritage — fixings are expected to be reversible, panels visually minimised, and conservation officers have real veto power
- The timescale is longer — commonly the better part of a year from PCC decision to commissioning, against a few months for straightforward commercial work
- The narrative matters — stewardship and creation care frame the project as much as the financial return
A proposal that applies the warehouse template to a church is the most common reason a DAC sends an application back for redrafting, which costs the parish months and usually a renegotiation of capex. Getting the consent route right at the outset is the single highest-value thing a PCC can do, which is why our faculty application guide is the most detailed page on this site.
How our figures are sourced
Every grant amount, tariff and deadline we publish carries a source and a date, and we re-check the volatile ones — export tariffs, grant windows, VAT treatment — on a schedule rather than leaving them to age quietly on the page. Where a figure is modelled rather than measured we say so. Where a scheme has closed, we say that too: the grants and funding page is maintained on that basis and is the page most parishes arrive on.
If you find something on this site that is out of date or wrong, tell us on the contact page and we will correct it and say when we did.
Listed fabric changes the design, not just the paperwork
On Grade I and Grade II* churches the conservation rationale carries as much weight as the electrical design. A Statement of Significance has to explain what matters about the building and why the proposed array does not harm it; a visual impact assessment has to show the array from the viewpoints that matter. Reversible fixings are the expected default on heritage fabric. Understanding that before the design is drawn is what keeps an application moving.
- Statement of Significance is the document DACs scrutinise hardest
- Visual impact assessed from the viewpoints the conservation officer will use
- Reversible fixings as the design default on historic fabric
- Ecclesiastical exemption means listed-building consent does not apply in the usual way
Where our guidance applies
The consent routes we cover span England, Wales and Scotland, and they differ by denomination as much as by geography. Anglican parishes in England run under faculty jurisdiction through their Diocesan Advisory Committee. The Church in Wales operates its own faculty system. The Scottish Episcopal Church, the Methodist Church, the Catholic dioceses and the independent free churches each have their own permissions and their own funding routes — which is why a single "church solar" answer is usually the wrong one. Our diocesan pages and regional guides break this down, and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are covered separately because their grant landscapes genuinely differ.
Our standing offer to any PCC
- A free desk-based feasibility assessment, with no obligation and no sales follow-up
- A PCC-ready written report inside seven working days
- An honest answer, including when the answer is that solar is not worth it for your building
- The unfunded case shown alongside the grant-funded one, because awards are competitive and not guaranteed
- Your details kept to us unless you ask us to introduce you to someone