Checked against GOV.UK on 17 September 2026.
No — not at present. In May 2025 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) asked whether solar canopies should be required on new outdoor car parks. On 21 May 2026 it published its conclusion: the policy “will not be taken any further at this point”. No alternative requirement was announced.
That leaves a car park owner where they were before the call for evidence — free to choose, with permitted development rights that make a canopy easier to consent than many people assume. But the call for evidence is still worth reading, because it put the government’s own estimates of canopy costs, benefits and grid problems on the record.
What the government proposed
The call for evidence ran from 7 May to 18 June 2025. Its first section sought views on a proposal to mandate the introduction of solar canopies on new outdoor car parks, and to explore opportunities for deployment on existing car parks above a certain size, covering both public and private ownership. It also asked whether multi-storey and residential car parks should be in scope.
It floated exemptions for:
- car parks in conservation areas and more sensitive landscapes;
- small car parks with fewer than a defined minimum number of spaces;
- areas where grid infrastructure is inadequate to support solar deployment;
- older existing car parks nearing the end of their functional lifespan or slated for demolition.
It also set out options to exempt existing car parks altogether (applying the mandate to new car parks only), to exempt multi-storey car parks because of their limited surface area, and to exempt residential car parks because of the upfront cost to households. No coverage percentage, size threshold or start date was fixed — those were among the questions asked.
The costs and benefits DESNZ put out for comment
The document used an illustrative 80-space car park, in 2025 prices, and asked for comment on estimates that it would:
| Item | DESNZ estimate |
|---|---|
| Cost to install solar canopies | around £140,000 |
| Revenue the canopies could generate | around £22,000 a year |
| Saving on electricity bills | around £28,000 a year |
| Annual maintenance | around £1,400 |
| Foregone parking revenue during installation | around £180,000 |
Its annex explains the assumptions: a 2.4 m × 5.0 m parking space, a capacity intensity of 1 MW for every 5,000 m², and a load factor of 11% taken from the DESNZ Electricity Generation Costs Report 2023. The cost estimate drew on DESNZ’s projections for large-scale solar farms and 10–50 kW solar PV in 2030 — not on quotes for canopies.
Worked through, those assumptions describe a canopy of roughly 190 kWp (80 spaces × 12 m² = 960 m², at 1 MW per 5,000 m²) producing roughly 185,000 kWh a year at an 11% load factor. Two of the assumptions deserve a second look before anyone reuses the numbers:
- The load factor. For a canopy at a shallow 10° pitch, the European Commission’s PVGIS model gives about 920 kWh per kWp a year in London — a load factor of about 10.5% — and about 772 in Glasgow, closer to 8.8%. An 11% assumption flatters canopies in the north.
- The £180,000 of foregone revenue. It assumes the entire car park is closed for three and a half months while the canopies are installed, and that the car park charges for parking. Canopies are often built a section at a time, and a free staff car park has no parking charge to forgo.
The car park estate a mandate would have reached
The call for evidence cited the Private Parking Code’s estimate of around 40,000–50,000 private car parking sites across Great Britain, run by over 200 private parking operators, plus 20,000 council-run sites. Most private sites are small: 66% have fewer than 50 spaces, 15% have 50–99, 16% have 100–499 and 3% have more than 500 — which is why an exemption for small car parks featured so prominently.
For context, it noted that the UK had 18 GW of solar deployed as of February 2025, against a government ambition of 45–47 GW by the end of the decade.
The grid problem it flagged
The document was candid about connections. It said significant upgrades may be required — new substations, higher-capacity transformers and advanced metering — that canopies could add to a lengthy connection queue, and it asked whether owners would accept an export limitation, potentially capped at zero export. It also noted that on-site generation could reduce the size of a car park’s grid connection request where canopies power EV chargers.
What happened next
The call for evidence had two sections, and they went different ways:
- EV charging (Section 2) — the government’s response on 26 November 2025 reported that the vast majority of respondents supported simplifying chargepoint installation and that there was broad support for further permitted development rights for EV charging; it said further consultations would follow. It also decided not to bring battery storage into permitted development, because most battery projects need a wider planning application anyway.
- Solar canopies (Section 1) — on 21 May 2026, DESNZ concluded the mandate will not be taken any further at this point.
What exists instead: permitted development
The absence of a mandate does not mean canopies are hard to build. In England, since 21 December 2023, a solar canopy over non-domestic off-street parking has been permitted development under Part 14 Class OA of the General Permitted Development Order — subject to a prior approval application on siting, design, external appearance and glare, a 4-metre height limit, and a 10-metre buffer from the curtilage of homes. Scotland has an equivalent right, Class 9M, with stricter location rules. The full rules, including what the council assesses and when a full application is needed, are in our guide to solar carport planning permission.
Should a car park owner wait?
There is nothing to wait for. No mandate is coming on the current evidence, so a canopy stands or falls on its own economics: how much of the output the site can use during the day, what the connection allows, what the structure costs on your ground conditions, and how the chargers under it are funded. The government’s own figures are a starting point for that conversation — just not a quote.
Sources
All checked 17 September 2026.