Solar Canopies in Scotland

Permitted development for car park canopies: Class 9M

The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2024 (SSI 2024/102) rewrote Scotland's non-domestic solar rights for development begun on or after 24 May 2024. For car parks the relevant right is Class 9M, which covers installing, altering or replacing a solar canopy, and the equipment needed to operate it, within a qualifying parking area: an area whose primary use is the lawful off-street parking of vehicles, where vehicles are parked on a hard surface. The structure has to support solar panels, be open on one or more sides and be designed for vehicles to park underneath it.

A canopy is not permitted development under Class 9M if it would:

• exceed 4 metres in height, measured from the surface used for parking — or, for any part other than the canopy itself, 3 metres;
• be within 5 metres of a road;
• be inside, or within 10 metres of, the curtilage of a dwellinghouse or a building containing flats;
• be within 3 kilometres of the perimeter of an aerodrome or technical site;
• sit on the roof of a building, or on the top level of an open-top multi-storey car park;
• be in a conservation area, a National Park, a National Scenic Area, a World Heritage Site, a historic garden or designed landscape, a historic battlefield, a site of archaeological interest, or the curtilage of a listed building.

The canopy needs no prior approval; batteries do. The prior approval procedure in Class 9M applies only to battery storage associated with the canopy and its equipment. Before starting, the developer applies to the planning authority for a determination as to whether prior approval is needed for the design and siting of the batteries; if the authority makes no determination within 28 days, the work may go ahead. Each battery unit or piece of equipment housing (excluding the canopy and cabling) must not exceed 29 cubic metres, with 58 cubic metres as the combined limit. Any lighting forming part of the development must point at the parking surface and light only the immediate area.

Three points trip people up. First, Class 9M first came into force on 31 March 2023 with a definition of solar canopy whose primary use was the recharging of vehicles; the replacement in force since 24 May 2024 has no charging requirement. Second, Class 9M is the canopy right — it is separate from Class 6J, which lets panels go on a non-domestic building with no capacity limit provided nothing protrudes more than 1 metre from the building surface, and from Class 6N, which caps free-standing panels in a building's curtilage at 12 square metres in total. A ground-mounted array is not a canopy. Third, permitted development is a planning answer, not a building standards answer: the Scottish Government's Circular 2/2024 notes that permitted development may still need to meet building standards and may need a building warrant, and the building standards exemption for carports covers only a single-storey carport ancillary to a house and no bigger than 30 square metres.

Where a site fails any Class 9M test, the canopy needs a planning application to the local planning authority, which will weigh it against National Planning Framework 4: Policy 11 supports solar arrays and places significant weight on a proposal's contribution to renewable energy targets. The 3 km aerodrome and technical-site buffer is the test most often missed, because it reaches well beyond airport boundaries into surrounding business parks. England works differently again — its rules are covered in our England planning guide for car park canopies.

EV chargers under a Scottish canopy

Chargers have their own permitted development classes in Scotland. Class 9E allows a wall-mounted charging outlet in a qualifying parking area if, with its casing, it is no more than 0.5 cubic metres and does not face onto a road within 2 metres of it. Class 9F allows charging posts up to 2.7 metres high (1.6 metres within the curtilage of a house or flats), not within 2 metres of a road and no more than one per parking space; any other piece of equipment, including housing, must stay within 29 cubic metres and 3 metres high, and not within 5 metres of a road or 10 metres of a house or flat curtilage. Since 31 March 2023 these charging classes no longer exclude conservation areas, National Parks or World Heritage Sites — unlike the canopy right itself.

What a canopy generates in Scotland

Canopies are usually built at a shallow pitch so that water runs off without making the structure tall, and a shallow pitch costs output. The table uses the European Commission's PVGIS 5.3 model (SARAH3 satellite data, 2005–2023) for a 1 kWp free-standing system facing due south with 14% system losses, at a 10° canopy pitch and at the 35° pitch that roof arrays often use.

Three things follow from those numbers.

• Size from the Scottish figure, not a UK average. Each 100 kWp of canopy at 10° gives roughly 77,200 kWh a year in Glasgow, 80,500 in Edinburgh, 79,100 in Aberdeen and 73,400 in Inverness, against about 92,000 in London. A quote that assumes 950–1,050 kWh per kWp in central Scotland is overstating generation by a fifth or more.
• The pitch penalty is real but modest. In all four Scottish cities a 10° canopy yields between 9.5% and 11.5% less a year than a 35° array — usually a fair trade for a structure that clears vehicles without extra height.
• Winter output is close to nothing. At 10°, December output is about 10.5 kWh per kWp in Glasgow and 7.4 in Inverness, against roughly 113 and 110 in June; London's December figure is 21.6. A canopy in Scotland earns its keep between April and September, so the business case rests on daytime demand in those months — offices, retail, distribution sites and schools — rather than on winter loads or on battery cycling through December.

Grid connection: SP Energy Networks or SSEN

Scotland is split between two distribution network operators, and the application process differs between them.

• SP Energy Networks (SP Distribution plc) runs the network in central and southern Scotland, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.
• SSEN (Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution plc) runs the north of Scotland, from Dundee and Aberdeen to Inverness, Argyll, the Highlands and the islands.

The small-generator route under regulation 22 of the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002 covers output of no more than 16 A per phase (about 3.68 kW) at low voltage. Every commercial canopy is well above that, so it is a G99 connection.

Across Great Britain, the ENA's distributed generation connection guide sets the outer limits: a DNO must make a connection offer within three months of a complete application, and where it does all the works it has 45 working days to quote at low voltage and 65 working days at high or extra-high voltage. In practice, the grid application is often the longest item in a canopy programme, which is why it should start before the structure is ordered.

Business rates on car parks and canopies in Scotland

Non-domestic rates are devolved, and Scotland's rules differ from England's in timing and detail. Five points matter for a canopy project:

• On-site renewable plant is left out of the valuation. The regulations in SSI 2023/32 exclude certain plant and machinery used for on-site renewable generation and storage — Class 1 power plant relying on sources such as photovoltaics, plus storage batteries and transformers at EV charging points — for days from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2035. It removes qualifying plant from the valuation; it is not a blanket exemption for the site, and no primary source we found says how a canopy's steel structure is treated.
• Business Growth Accelerator relief delays a rates increase for 12 months where an existing entry that comprises a building has been improved, and the Scottish Government's guidance (Finance Circular 7/2026) names solar panels as a typical improvement. It delays the increase; it does not remove it.
• Renewable Energy Generation Relief applies only to properties used solely to produce heat or power, including from photovoltaics. A canopy serving an occupied business site is not that.
• Car parks are excluded from the Small Business Bonus Scheme (from 1 April 2024) and from Fresh Start relief (from 1 April 2026).
• Public EV charging bays pay no non-domestic rates from 2026-27 to 2035-36, but only where the property consists wholly or mainly of a charging point and bay, the charger is intended primarily for the public, and the ratepayer applies (SSI 2026/68, regulation 8). The Scottish Assessors' 2026 car park guidance gives separately occupied charging spaces their own valuation roll entry and adjusts the car park's value to match.

For how the same questions play out in England and Wales, see our guide to business rates on solar canopies.

Funding a solar canopy in Scotland

Businesses

Capital allowances are a UK-wide tax, so a Scottish company buying a canopy is in the same position as one in England: the Annual Investment Allowance covers qualifying plant up to £1 million a year, and solar panels sit in the special rate pool. The Scottish-specific route that many older guides still quote has gone: Business Energy Scotland's SME Loan Scheme still offers interest-free loans of up to £100,000 over 8 years for other eligible measures, but it is not accepting new applications for solar PV projects.

For EV charging under a canopy, the UK Workplace Charging Scheme is open to Scottish organisations and pays up to £500 per socket (up from £350 on 1 April 2026) for up to 40 sockets across your sites, until 31 March 2027. Microbusinesses, sole traders and third-sector groups on Scottish islands or in rural postcodes (categories 5–8 of the Scottish urban-rural classification) can also apply to a Transport Scotland-funded grant covering up to 100% of charge point costs, capped at £5,000, for private staff or fleet chargers. For what the charging hardware itself costs, see our breakdown of charger and canopy costs.

Councils, universities, colleges and other public bodies

Scotland's Public Sector Energy Efficiency Loan Scheme, administered by Salix for the Scottish Government, offers zero-interest loans on a rolling basis to bodies covered by the public-body duties of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, including councils, universities and council arm's-length organisations, subject to available funding. The guidance lists solar PV as eligible, allows battery storage only as part of a PV installation, requires projects to pay back within 12 years at a carbon cost normally no higher than £305 per tonne, and funds only the share of a PV system that covers the site's own electricity use — capacity added to earn export income has to be financed separately. The additional £2 million solar pot funded by Great British Energy is closed. The guidance also lists enabling and ancillary works as eligible costs but does not mention canopies or car parks, so confirm with Salix whether the canopy structure itself is covered before relying on it.

State-funded schools can add chargers through the education strand of the Workplace Charging Scheme, which pays up to £2,000 per socket and runs in Scotland as well as England — covered on our page on solar PV school canopies.

Charities and community organisations

The CARES Community Buildings Fund offers non-profit-distributing Scottish charities and companies grants of up to £80,000 at 80% of eligible costs, with solar PV a core eligible measure, until the end of October 2026 or until the fund is allocated.

Closed or not available to canopy owners

• The Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund: its fourth call closed in March 2025.
• The CARES Community Energy Growth Fund: closed to new applications.
• Transport Scotland's £30 million EV Infrastructure Fund: a local authority fund, now fully allocated.
• ChargePlace Scotland: the contract is not being renewed, owners must move charge points off the network by the end of 2026 and the network closes in 2027, so a new public charger under a canopy needs a different back office from day one.

Why Scottish public bodies are looking at their car parks

Scotland's statutory net-zero target year is 2045, and the interim percentage targets were replaced by five-year carbon budgets set as a share of the baseline — 43% for 2026–2030, falling to 6% for 2041–2045. Under section 44 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, every public body must act in the way best calculated to contribute to those targets, and listed bodies, including councils and NHS Health Boards, must report on their climate change duties within eight months of each year ending 31 March. For an estate team with little roof space in good condition, the car park is often the largest unshaded surface it controls.

Scottish city guides

• Solar canopies in Glasgow — SP Energy Networks area; PVGIS about 772 kWh/kWp at a 10° canopy pitch.
• Solar canopies in Edinburgh — SP Energy Networks area; PVGIS about 805 kWh/kWp at 10°.
• Solar canopies in Aberdeen — SSEN north of Scotland area; PVGIS about 791 kWh/kWp at 10°.

Questions about solar canopies in Scotland

Sources

All checked 17 September 2026.

• SSI 2024/102 — Classes 6J, 6N and 9M, Part 2I (Class 9M) as amended and Part 2D (Classes 9E and 9F)
• Scottish Government Planning Circular 2/2024 and National Planning Framework 4
• SSI 2023/32 — rating exception for on-site renewables plant
• PVGIS 5.3, European Commission Joint Research Centre
• SP Energy Networks — G99 generator connections and quotation options
• SSEN — generation connections at or above 50 kW and network processes
• Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002, regulation 22
• Scottish Government — Local Government Finance Circular 7/2026 and SSI 2026/68
• Business Energy Scotland — SME Loan Scheme FAQs
• Salix — Scotland's Public Sector Energy Efficiency Loan Scheme
• GOV.UK — changes to chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026
• Energy Saving Trust — business charge point funding and ChargePlace Scotland transition fund
• Local Energy Scotland — CARES Community Buildings Fund
• Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, section 44 and SSI 2025/281 (carbon budgets)

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