Haywards Heath grew up around a railway station opened in 1841, and many cars in the town still follow the train timetable: out in the morning, back in the evening, parked overnight. Solar panels work to the opposite timetable. That mismatch is the heart of any honest answer about charging an electric car from a Haywards Heath roof, and it changes with the seasons more than most people expect. If you are thinking about a charger first, our page on EV charger installation in Haywards Heath covers the kit, grants and the supply.
This guide puts monthly figures on it, using the European Commission’s PVGIS model for a 4 kWp array facing due south at 35°, and sets them against a car and a typical house. The daily and per-charge figures are our arithmetic on those published numbers, not a promise for your roof.
Four months on a Haywards Heath roof
PVGIS 5.3 gives about 4,246 kWh a year for that array in Haywards Heath, on its 2005–2023 satellite record with 14% system losses. The year is lopsided.
| Month | PVGIS output (kWh) | Per day, our arithmetic (kWh) |
|---|---|---|
| June | 526 | about 17.5 |
| July | 525 | about 16.9 |
| December | 146 | about 4.7 |
| January | 162 | about 5.2 |
December’s output is about 28% of June’s on the same roof (our arithmetic). Those figures are for an unshaded, south-facing slope. An east or west slope, a tall tree on a Lucastes plot, or a neighbouring gable in the older streets near the station pulls every row down, and only a survey of your roof gives a real figure.
The house uses its share first
Panels feed whatever is running in the house at the time, and only the excess is spare for a car or for export. Ofgem’s typical domestic consumption value from 1 July 2026 is 2,500 kWh a year for a medium, single-rate home, about 6.8 kWh a day (our arithmetic). Most Haywards Heath homes heat with gas: 78.9% of households relied on mains gas alone at Census 2021, so the electricity a typical house uses is mostly appliances, lighting and cooking.
Take a deliberately cautious case: the house uses a whole typical day’s electricity while the sun is up. On an average June day that still leaves about 10.7 kWh spare from the 4 kWp roof. On an average December day, 4.7 kWh of generation does not cover 6.8 kWh of use, so nothing is left (our arithmetic in both cases). Real days swing either side of the average, but the gap between the seasons holds.
What a June surplus can add to the car
A 7 kW charger delivers roughly 7 kWh an hour. A spare 10.7 kWh on a June day is about an hour and a half of full-rate charging, or about a sixth of a 60 kWh charge (our arithmetic). Over the whole of June, the same cautious sum leaves up to about 320 kWh spare, a little over five 60 kWh charges, if every bit of it could reach the car.
That last condition is the one that matters. With a compatible set-up, the charger can take surplus solar that would otherwise be exported, but only while the car is plugged in. In Bolnore Village, around 780 homes built from 2002 where the houses usually have a drive, a car at home on a summer weekday can soak up a good share. A car at the station car park cannot.
The commuter catch
For a weekday commuter, the summer surplus mainly reaches the car on weekends and days off. If the car is home in daylight two days in seven, the June figure above shrinks to roughly 91 kWh, about one and a half 60 kWh charges (our arithmetic). The rest of the surplus is not wasted: it is exported, or used by the house during the day, or stored in a home battery if you have one, but it is not driving the car.
So for a Haywards Heath commuter, it is fairer to think of panels as cutting what the house buys and topping up the car at weekends from spring to autumn, rather than as the car’s main fuel.
What winter charging looks like
From November to February the car runs mainly on grid electricity, charged overnight. Every new home charger sold in Great Britain has had to be smart since 30 June 2022, and the EnSmart SmartBee-M we fit schedules into off-peak hours by default and connects over WiFi or Ethernet. For a car that comes home on the evening train and leaves at seven, that overnight window is when charging happens anyway, panels or not.
The supply has to cope with that overnight load whatever the season. A 7 kW charger draws 32 A continuously, household main fuses are commonly 60 A, 80 A or 100 A, and Haywards Heath’s town centre is in UK Power Networks’ South Eastern Power Networks area. Approved installers notify UKPN through its Smart Connect service, which takes EV chargepoint forms alongside solar ones, so panels and a charger can be notified as one job.
Planning panels and a charger together
The tax treatment differs. Residential solar panels are zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027, then 5%; a home charger carries 20%. Our page on solar panels in Haywards Heath covers what the town’s roofs generate and what an installation involves, and our home EV charger installation page sets out the charger kit.
If you live in one of the town’s 3,600 purpose-built flats, 27.3% of homes at Census 2021, the roof is rarely yours, but a charger may still be possible with an allocated space, and renters and flat owners can get 75% of the cost up to £500 per socket. Our guide to who qualifies for the EV chargepoint grant explains the routes; claims must be made through an OZEV-authorised installer, so tell us your situation at the quote stage. Ask for a survey through our contact page or call 0204 547 1892.
Sources: European Commission JRC, PVGIS 5.3 (PVGIS-SARAH3, 2005–2023), 4 kWp, 35°, due south, 14% losses, building-mounted, Haywards Heath monthly output, run 15 October 2026; Ofgem, typical domestic consumption values from 1 July 2026; ONS Census 2021, TS044 and TS046, Haywards Heath civil parish (censusdata.uk); DfT and DVLA, VEH0142 licensed plug-in vehicles by keepership and local authority, Mid Sussex, 2026 Q2 and 2025 Q2 (published 23 September 2026); Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021; UK Power Networks, Smart Connect and licence boundaries open data; HMRC, VAT Notice 708/6; GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026); Wikipedia, Haywards Heath. Daily, monthly-surplus and per-charge figures are our arithmetic.