Solar Panel Installer St Helens (solar for St Helens homes) / About
Our sources, and how we work things out
Every figure on this site comes from a named public source or is our own working from one. This page explains the working, especially the shade checker, and lists every source.
Sources read on 3 November 2026. Published by SEO Dons, which runs this St Helens site.
The shade checker
Sun position: the NOAA general solar position equations (declination and the equation of time from Spencer's series), for 53.4534° N, 2.7369° W, every quarter-hour of the 21st of each month, on clock time with summer time from April to October. An obstacle hides the sun when the sun's compass direction is within the obstacle's half-width as seen from the bottom of the panels, and its height is below the angle to the obstacle's top.
Weighting: each quarter-hour is weighted by the direct sunshine a clear sky would put on a panel facing your way at your pitch, using Meinel's air-mass model for the strength of the beam and the angle between the sun and the panel. The "share of direct sunshine lost" compares obstacles; it is not an energy figure and ignores cloud and diffuse light.
This differs on purpose from MCS's shade-factor method, which installers use and which is more cautious about objects within 10 m; see the shade checker page.
Output, prices and sums
Output: PVGIS 5.3 queried on 3 November 2026 for central St Helens and eight other points, 1 kW of crystalline silicon panels, 14% losses, terrain horizon, SARAH3 sunshine data for 2005 to 2023, eight directions at five pitches. Prices: system size times the DESNZ 2025/26 North West mean or UK median for its size band. First-year values: output times a stated share used at home at the Ofgem cap's average unit rate for October to December 2026, plus the rest at a stated export rate. No payback periods.
Every source cited
- Citizens Advice: changing your mind about a service
- Council Tax stock of properties, 2026 (HMRC)
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero: regional renewable statistics
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero: solar photovoltaics deployment
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero: solar PV cost data (2025/26)
- ECO4 end date: government response, GOV.UK
- GOV.UK service: Warm Homes: Local Grant
- GOV.UK: high hedges, complaining to the council
- GOV.UK: search the register of energy performance certificates
- GOV.UK: Warm Homes Loan Scheme
- GOV.UK: Warm Homes: Local Grant, successful local authorities
- Growth Platform: Solar Together in the Liverpool City Region (November 2023)
- HIES (Home Insulation and Energy Systems) consumer code
- HM Land Registry: UK House Price Index, St Helens, August 2026
- HMRC Notice 708/6: zero rate for installing solar and batteries in homes
- MCS installer search
- MCS MGD 005: solar PV shade evaluation procedure (shade factor)
- MCS MIS 3002 version 6.0: the solar PV installation standard
- MCS standards and tools library
- Met Office: Crosby climate averages and North West England district sunshine, 1991–2020
- National Heritage List for England (Historic England)
- NESO data portal: distribution network licence area boundaries
- NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory: general solar position calculations
- Nomis: Census 2021 table TS007A, age
- Nomis: Census 2021 table TS044, type of accommodation
- Nomis: Census 2021 table TS054, tenure
- Office for National Statistics: how energy efficient are homes in England and Wales
- Ofgem (May 2026): typical domestic consumption values
- Ofgem: how export payments work for small generators
- Ofgem: the energy price cap, unit rates by region
- ONS: how life has changed in St Helens, Census 2021
- Pilkington: the story of Pilkington UK
- Planning data platform: St Helens conservation areas and listed buildings
- PVGIS 5.3 photovoltaic estimates (EU Joint Research Centre)
- RECC, the Renewable Energy Consumer Code
- SP Energy Networks letter to Ofgem (2020) on its SP Manweb area
- SP Energy Networks: generation connections
- St Helens Borough Council news: action to cut carbon (September 2025)
- St Helens Borough Council news: solar power for council leisure centres (February 2025)
- St Helens Borough Council: Article 4(2) directions, a guide for owners and occupiers
- St Helens Borough Council: conservation areas
- St Helens Borough Council: Earlestown conservation area appraisal
- St Helens Borough Council: sustainable warmth and the Warm Homes: Local Grant
- St Helens Borough Council: Vulcan Village conservation area appraisal
- Statutory Instrument 2026/848 (plug-in solar)
- Statutory Instrument 2026/896 (solar permitted development, in force 27 August 2026)
- Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015, Schedule 2 Part 14
- TrustMark: quality scheme for tradespeople
- Victoria County History of Lancashire, vol. 3: Parr (British History Online)
- Victoria County History of Lancashire, vol. 3: Windle (British History Online)
- Warm Homes Loan Scheme factsheet, GOV.UK (27 October 2026)
- Warm Homes Loan Scheme rules, version 3 (September 2026)
- Warm Homes: Local Grant policy guidance, DESNZ (updated June 2026)
Related pages
Get a solar quote for your St Helens roof, shade and all
Tell us what you would like a quote for, with your St Helens postcode and what stands to the south of the roof: a stack, the houses opposite or a tree. Your details go to SEO-DONS LTD, publisher of Solar Panel Installer St Helens, and we reply by email.
What happens next
- Send the form: it reaches SEO-DONS LTD, and a full postcode tells us which part of the borough you are in.
- We read it and reply by email, with the figures and sources that apply to you.
- Asking for a quote costs nothing, and whether and with whom you go ahead is your decision.