The answer first
DESNZ counts 11,685 solar PV sites in Cheshire East at the end of 2025, up from 5,142 at the end of 2019, about 2.27 times as many. Against an estimated 174,900 households that is roughly 6.7 sites per hundred, though the count includes non-domestic sites. No figure is published for Nantwich alone.
Where the count comes from
DESNZ releases renewable electricity figures for each local authority, counting the solar PV sites in each council area at the end of every year. The count is of installations, regardless of size, and it covers every kind of owner: households, businesses, farms, schools and larger ground-mounted arrays alike. The same series also gives capacity and generation, but the site count is the clearest guide to how widespread panels have become.
From 2019 to 2025
| Year end | Solar PV sites | Sites per 100 households |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 5,142 | 2.9 |
| 2025 | 11,685 | 6.7 |
Over six years the number of sites in Cheshire East rose from 5,142 to 11,685, an increase of 6,543, so the count at the end of 2025 was about 2.27 times the count at the end of 2019. Spread evenly, that would be roughly 1,091 new sites a year across the borough, although in practice the pace varies from year to year. The intermediate years are in the same series, for anyone who wants the year-by-year path rather than two snapshots.
Divide the 2025 total by the DESNZ household estimate of 174,900 and the result is about 6.7 sites per hundred households. That is not the same as saying 6.7% of homes have panels, for the reason set out below.
What the total includes
Each solar installation counts once, whatever its size. A field of panels on farmland, an array on a warehouse roof, a school’s system and a few panels on a cottage are all single sites. Some of the borough’s total therefore sits on land and buildings that are not homes at all. Dividing the whole count by the number of households gives an upper limit for domestic take-up rather than an exact share, and the true proportion of homes with panels will be somewhat lower.
The count also says nothing about size. A borough with many small domestic systems and one with fewer, larger ones could show the same number of sites. The capacity figures in the same dataset help with that, but they mix domestic and non-domestic sites in the same way. Nor does the count say whether a system is still working, which way it faces, or how much of its output is used on site; it records only that a site exists.
Why there is no figure for Nantwich alone
The statistics are published for local authorities, and Nantwich is one town among many in Cheshire East. Census 2021 did not ask households whether they had solar panels, so the ward tables that describe Nantwich’s housing cannot fill the gap. Any Nantwich-only number would be an estimate built on assumptions about which kinds of homes have panels, and this guide does not publish one. What the census can show is how the town and its villages differ from the borough average, which hints at where take-up may run higher or lower.
Local differences that could cut either way
Several features of Nantwich’s housing, all measured, bear on how easy it is for a household to go ahead. None of them measures take-up itself.
- Who owns the roof. In the village wards between 73.5% and 84.8% of households own their home, against 71.9% across the borough. In Nantwich North and West the figure is 61.8%, with more renting and more flats, so more decisions there involve a landlord or a building owner.
- House type. Detached houses make up 49.9% to 65.9% of households in the village wards, compared with 36.6% borough-wide and 16.6% in Nantwich North and West. Detached houses tend to offer more roof and more options, including garden arrays.
- Heating. Many village homes heat with oil or LPG, while most homes in the two town wards use mains gas. That changes what panels do for a household, as explained on off-gas villages.
- Heritage. The conservation area holds 125 list entries, and listed homes need planning permission and Listed Building Consent for panels, which adds time and cost; see the conservation-area page.
Taken together, these pull in different directions. Ownership and house type in the villages mean more households can decide for themselves, while flats, renting and listed buildings in town put a second party or a consent into many decisions. Which effect is stronger cannot be read from the data. The full ward figures are on Nantwich homes by ward, and the census tables behind them are listed on data and sources.
The part played by Switch Together
Cheshire East’s Switch Together group-buying scheme, formerly Solar Together, has added to the total in recent years. By the council’s account, Switch Together has fitted solar to more than five hundred homes across Cheshire East, with almost 2.9 MW of panels and 3.22 MWh of battery storage between them. Set against more than eleven thousand sites in the borough, that is a few per cent of the whole. The scheme’s figures and the DESNZ count come from different sources and different dates, so the comparison is approximate. The 2026 round closed to registrations on 25 September 2026; what remains open is listed on grants and schemes.
Batteries sit outside the count
The DESNZ series counts sites that generate electricity, so a home battery does not appear in it, whether it was fitted with panels or added later. The council’s Switch Together figures are one of the few local measures of storage, and they cover only the households that bought through the scheme. How a battery fits a particular house is weighed on batteries.
Keeping the figures current
The local-authority series is updated once a year, and each release can revise earlier years as late registrations arrive, so the numbers quoted here are those published when the sources were read. The next release will add the count for the end of 2026, which will include the 2026 Switch Together installations. The date each source was checked appears at the top of every page, and the full list of datasets used across the guide is on data and sources.
What a busy market means for a household
More than eleven thousand sites in the borough means many firms working locally and plenty of neighbours with experience to share. It does not make every firm suitable, and it does not mean every roof is a good candidate. The public checks on a firm, from the MCS register to Companies House, are set out on choosing an installer, and they matter just as much in a well-supplied market as in a thin one.
What the figures mean for one house
A rising count shows that panels have become ordinary across the borough, but it says nothing about whether a particular roof suits them. Direction, pitch, shade, the state of the roof and the planning position decide that. Start with output on a Nantwich roof, compare prices on solar costs, and browse the other guides from the guides index. For a question about a particular home, use the question form.