Solar · Battery · EV — Surrey
Solar Panels Woking
Solar panels, battery storage and EV chargers for homes in and around Woking — designed from your actual usage, installed by an MCS-certified team, and explained in plain English before you commit to anything.
Woking is the town H.G. Wells had the Martians invade — he wrote The War of the Worlds while living on Maybury Road, and Michael Condron's seven-metre chrome Martian, unveiled in 1998 for the novel's centenary, still stands in the town. Today it's a fast-changing commuter town around 23 miles from central London, home to the McLaren Technology Centre and WWF-UK's Living Planet Centre on the Basingstoke Canal. We quote for homes in and around Woking, and this page sets out what's genuinely worth knowing before you do.
Woking also has a real claim to energy-pioneer status: the borough council set up its own energy company, ThamesWey, in 1999, and under engineer Allan Jones the town installed 81 private-wire decentralised energy systems — at one point nearly 10% of the UK's total installed solar photovoltaics. That era is heritage now, not a current funding pot, so we'd rather be straight with you: whether solar stacks up depends on your roof, your usage and whether battery storage makes sense alongside it — and we'll tell you honestly if it doesn't.
Solar on Woking's housing
Woking's 41,439 households split unusually cleanly at both ends of the market. Just over 30% of homes are detached — the leafy belts of Hook Heath, Horsell and Pyrford — with roof areas that can often take a decent-sized array without compromise. Another 43% are semis and terraces, concentrated in Knaphill, St John's, Old Woking and Sheerwater — the last an early-1950s London County Council overspill neighbourhood of nearly 1,300 homes, with regeneration approved in 2017. And 26% are flats, a share swollen by town-centre schemes like Victoria Square, completed in 2022 with 429 apartments and a 34-storey, 117-metre tower — Woking's tallest building, and mostly outside what rooftop solar can serve (Census 2021, TS044 via Nomis).
The energy data points the same way: EPC Advisor's analysis of the GOV.UK certificate register covers 33,598 assessed Woking properties, finds an average rating of band D with half of all rated homes at D or below — and the single most-recommended improvement, appearing on 25,929 certificates, is a 2.5 kWp solar PV system. Two local wrinkles to plan around: the borough has 27 conservation areas (Horsell, Old Woking and St John's among them), where roof-mounted panels are usually still permitted development but wall-mounted panels facing the street are not; and roughly 60% of the borough is Metropolitan Green Belt, which sounds restrictive but doesn't remove a householder's permitted development rights for roof solar.
What Woking Borough Council is doing
Woking Borough Council has a genuinely long energy record: it adopted its first climate change strategy in 2002, set up ThamesWey Energy — its first energy services company — in May 1999, and its town-centre energy station ran the UK's first multi-customer private-wire CHP district network. It declared a climate and ecological emergency in July 2019 with a pledge to be a net-zero council by 2030, scored 34% in Climate Emergency UK's 2023 Council Climate Action Scorecards — the best result in Surrey — and adopted its current strategy, 'Woking Climate Change Strategy — A Vision for a Net Zero Borough', in August 2024, replacing Woking 2050.
Practically, though, don't expect borough money: the council issued a Section 114 notice in June 2023 after running up a deficit of around £1.2 billion, so the pioneering era is history rather than a live funding stream. The scheme that does matter to homeowners is Solar Together Surrey — run by Surrey County Council with group-buying specialists iChoosr, it's free to register with no obligation, runs a reverse auction among pre-vetted installers, and covers solar panels, battery storage and EV charge points. Around 2,250 Surrey residents have had installations through it since 2021, and Woking takes part via the council's Planet Woking campaign.
Local facts, sourced
Woking in numbers
Every figure below comes from a named public source — the same standard we hold our savings estimates to.
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The nearest Met Office climate station, Wisley — a few miles east of Woking — averaged 1,564.3 sunshine hours a year over the 1981-2010 period.
Source: Met Office 1981-2010 station averages (Wisley), via Wikipedia's Surrey climate table
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Census 2021: Woking's 41,439 households are 30.5% detached, 24.7% semi-detached, 18.5% terraced and 26.0% flats or maisonettes.
Source: ONS Census 2021 TS044, via the Nomis API
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Private renting in Woking rose from 15.7% to 21.1% of households between 2011 and 2021 — the third-largest percentage-point rise in the South East, behind only Slough and Reading.
Source: ONS, 'How life has changed in Woking' (Census 2021)
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The most common EPC-recommended improvement in Woking is a 2.5 kWp solar PV system, appearing on 25,929 certificates; the borough's average rating is band D.
Source: EPC Advisor analysis of the GOV.UK EPC register
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Under engineer Allan Jones, Woking installed 81 private-wire decentralised energy systems — at the time nearly 10% of the UK's total installed solar photovoltaics.
Source: Wikipedia: Allan Jones (engineer) / Association for Decentralised Energy profile
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Around 2,250 Surrey residents have had solar panels and battery storage installed through Solar Together Surrey since 2021.
Source: Woking Borough Council newsroom / Surrey County Council
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About 60% of the borough is Metropolitan Green Belt and there are 27 conservation areas — neither removes a householder's permitted development rights for roof-mounted solar.
Source: Woking Core Strategy CS6 / woking.gov.uk / legislation.gov.uk GPDO 2015
Data last reviewed: July 2026
Where we work around Woking
We quote for homes in and around Woking, including Horsell, Knaphill, St John's, Hook Heath, Pyrford and Old Woking, across the GU21, GU22, GU24, KT14 postcode districts. Every quote starts with a free survey of your actual roof and usage — if solar wouldn't pay its way on your home, we'll say so plainly. Try the numbers first on our savings calculator, or read how we approach installations across Surrey.
Woking solar questions
Do I need planning permission for solar panels in Woking?
Usually not. Roof-mounted solar on a house is permitted development across England — including in the green belt, which covers about 60% of the borough — provided panels project no more than 0.2m beyond the roof plane and don't rise above the highest part of the roof (GPDO 2015, Schedule 2, Part 14). Woking's 27 conservation areas, including Horsell, Old Woking and St John's, add one real restriction: wall-mounted panels facing a highway aren't permitted, and flat-roof installations have tighter rules. Listed buildings always need consent. We check the specific address before we quote.
Which electricity network handles solar connections in Woking?
Woking sits in Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks' southern licence area — it was SSEN, not UK Power Networks, that handled past outages across Woking, Sheerwater and Chobham, and SSEN's Powertrack map is the live fault tool for the area. In practice that means your installer sends the G98 notification (or a G99 application for larger systems) to SSEN. Network boundaries can shift street by street, though, so it's worth confirming your own property on the Energy Networks Association's postcode lookup.
Is there any council help with solar in Woking?
Not from the borough directly. Woking Borough Council issued a Section 114 notice in June 2023, so despite its pioneering energy history there's no current borough solar funding. What is running is Solar Together Surrey: a county-council group-buying scheme with iChoosr where you register free with no obligation, pre-vetted installers bid in a reverse auction, and panels, retrofit batteries and EV charge points are all covered. About 2,250 Surrey residents have installed through it since 2021. It's a fair benchmark to compare any quote against — including ours.
Does Woking get enough sun for solar panels?
Solar panels work UK-wide, so Woking needs no special case made for it — but for a local figure, the nearest Met Office climate station at Wisley, a few miles east of town, averaged 1,564.3 hours of sunshine a year over the 1981-2010 period. Panels generate from daylight, not just direct sun, so they keep producing at a reduced rate on overcast days. What matters far more for your individual quote is roof orientation, pitch and shading — which is why we assess your actual roof rather than quoting from regional averages.
Would solar improve my Woking home's EPC?
It's the improvement assessors most often suggest here. Half of Woking's EPC-rated homes sit at band D or below, and EPC Advisor's analysis of the GOV.UK register shows the single most-recommended improvement on Woking certificates is a 2.5 kWp solar PV array — recommended 25,929 times across the borough's 33,598 assessed properties. What that's worth to you depends on your home and how you use energy; we won't promise specific bill savings or a jump in house value, because nobody honestly can.
Nearby
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