Solar Panel Cost in Sussex

The solar panel cost in Sussex is built from the same parts as anywhere else, but the inputs on the Weald side of the county are their own: what a Horsham roof generates, Crawley’s New Town terraces, the detached and semi-detached houses that make up most of Mid Sussex, the flats that are more than a quarter of Haywards Heath’s homes, and roofs in Horsham’s old centre laid in Horsham Stone. Each figure below has a dated, named source.

We quote for homes in and around Horsham, Crawley and Haywards Heath. Nothing on this page is an HCE price; that comes from a survey of your roof, supply and usage. What we fit, and how East and West Sussex compare, is on our solar panels in Sussex page.

On the settings we use across this site (4 kWp, 35° tilt, due south, 14% system losses, building-mounted, PVGIS-SARAH3, 2005–2023), PVGIS gives Horsham about 4,099 kWh a year, around 1,025 kWh per kWp, with a year-to-year swing of about ±133 kWh. Crawley, on the same settings, comes out at about 4,020 kWh and Haywards Heath at about 4,246 kWh: a spread of about 226 kWh between Crawley and Haywards Heath (our arithmetic). The Energy Saving Trust says an east- or west-facing roof gets around 15–20% less than a south-facing one, about 600 kWh or more on these figures, so which way your roof faces matters more than which of the three towns it is in. The nearest Met Office station to Horsham with published long-term averages, North Heath near Pulborough, averaged about 1,621 hours of sunshine a year over 1991–2020, and Charlwood, by Gatwick, about 1,628. Both sit below the Met Office’s south-east and central-south district average of about 1,671 hours and well above the UK’s 1,403: the record-setting sunshine of the Sussex coast is a coastal figure, not a Weald one.

Ofgem’s Typical Domestic Consumption Value from 1 July 2026 is 2,500 kWh a year, so that Horsham roof makes about 1.6 times what a medium household uses (our arithmetic: 4,099 ÷ 2,500). The catch is timing. PVGIS puts the same roof at about 501 kWh in July and 140 kWh in December, so December makes about 28% of July’s output, against an average month’s use of roughly 208 kWh (both our arithmetic). North Heath’s own record shows the same swing in sunshine: about 216 hours in July and 54 in December. Summer afternoons produce far more than the house uses, and much of it is exported unless someone is home, an appliance runs at midday or a battery stores it.

Export is paid under the Smart Export Guarantee at rates that are set by each supplier and must be above zero — they change on short notice, which is why we never print one. A unit used at home displaces one you would otherwise buy, so the share of those 4,099 Horsham kilowatt-hours you use yourself, alongside the installed price, decides payback. Haywards Heath grew up around its railway station and still sends commuters to London, Brighton, Crawley and Gatwick, and a house left empty all day uses less of its midday output than one with someone working at home. We stop short of a £ figure: it would rest on a guessed self-use share, and the survey asks when you are in instead. Our guide to how much solar panels can save shows the method.

Method: PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre), Horsham run 17 September 2026, Crawley 16 September 2026, Haywards Heath 19 October 2026, Horsham monthly figures 15 October 2026 · Energy Saving Trust on east- and west-facing roofs · Met Office — North Heath, 1991–2020 · Met Office — Charlwood, 1991–2020 (with district and UK rows) · Ofgem — Typical Domestic Consumption Values · Ofgem — Smart Export Guarantee.

Two houses on the same street in Horsham, Crawley or Haywards Heath can be quoted differently for the same panels. This is what changes between them:

• The house, the roof and the scaffold. At the 2021 Census, terraces were the commonest home in Crawley, 37.4% of its 45,500 households, with only 14.2% detached: the legacy of a New Town built in planned neighbourhoods, where whole streets share a roof shape. Horsham district is the opposite, 37.2% detached and 26.9% semi-detached, and Mid Sussex is 34.2% detached and 30.0% semi. Houses of any kind are 81.2% of Horsham’s households, 79.9% of Mid Sussex’s and 74.3% of Crawley’s (our arithmetic). A mid-terrace may take fewer panels than the Trust’s twelve; a detached house can need more scaffold.
• Flats and who owns the roof. Purpose-built flats are 23.8% of Crawley’s households and 15.5% of Mid Sussex’s, but 27.3% in Haywards Heath parish itself. A flat rarely has a roof of its own, so freeholder consent comes before any price.
• The roof covering. The Causeway in Horsham’s old centre is roofed in Horsham Stone, a local sandstone whose present-day sources the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings describes as very scarce. We treat those roofs as ones to conserve, not to drill, and say so before quoting; the detail is on our solar panels Horsham page.
• The inverter and the grid. A system up to 16 A per phase (3.68 kW) is notified under G98; anything larger needs a G99 approval before work starts, and a 4 kW inverter, at 17.39 A, is just over that line. UK Power Networks’ boundary data puts all three of our Sussex town centres in its South Eastern licence area; Horsham’s centre sits about 2.9 km from SSEN’s Southern Electric area, so towards the west of the district the postcode decides. UKPN says it automatically approves an application where the maximum export, after any export limitation, is under 5 kW, and if no supply upgrade is needed there is nothing to pay it.
• Conservation areas and protected landscapes. Horsham district has 39 conservation areas, Mid Sussex 36 (five of them in Haywards Heath) and Crawley 13. Horsham District Council’s guidance lists adding solar panels among the alterations that may need permission in one; under the Order as amended from 27 August 2026, roof slopes there keep their permitted development rights, but a flat-roof array needs a prior-approval determination first, as it does in the South Downs National Park, and a listed house needs consent wherever it is. See planning permission for solar panels in Sussex.

Check the registers, whoever quotes. HCE is registered as NAPIT member 73495, MCS-certified for solar PV and battery storage via NAPIT, and a HIES Consumer Code member (HCE/A/1392). For how a quote should be itemised, see what is in a solar quote, line by line.

Sources: ONS Census 2021 TS044 (Nomis), Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex · ONS TS044 for Haywards Heath civil parish (E04009988) via censusdata.uk · SPAB on Horsham Stone, as cited on our Horsham page · Energy Networks Association EREC G98 Issue 2 · UK Power Networks — licence boundaries · UK Power Networks — Solar and storage: cost, time and what’s involved · Horsham District Council — Conservation areas and planning permission · Mid Sussex District Council — Conservation Areas · planning.data.gov.uk — Crawley conservation areas · GPDO 2015 Schedule 2 Part 14. Read 19 October 2026 unless dated.