Planning Permission for Solar Panels in Northern Ireland: The Rules and Every Conservation Area by Council

On 23 September 2026 I read Part 2 of the Planning (General Permitted Development) Order (Northern Ireland) 2015 line by line, then opened the conservation area page of each of Northern Ireland’s 11 councils to check it still loads. I did it because the earlier version of this page, like most solar planning guides for NI, repeated English rules. It gave a 9 square metre limit and a 4 metre height for ground-mounted panels. Those are not Northern Ireland’s figures. Here they are 14 square metres and 2 metres.

This version is built from the Order itself (legislation.gov.uk). Its solar rules have not been amended since 2015: the 2023 amendment changed the heat pump classes only, and the 2026 amendment added reverse vending machines. Below you will find the conditions word for word where it matters, the situations where you do need permission, the one that GB guides wrongly add (AONBs), and a link for every council so you can check your own street.

The short answer

Most NI houses can have solar panels fitted without a planning application. You need to apply if:

1. Your home is a listed building, or the panels would sit within its curtilage.
2. You are in a conservation area or World Heritage Site and the panels would go on a roof slope or wall that faces onto and is visible from a road.
3. You live in a flat. The Order’s domestic rights apply to a “dwellinghouse”, which excludes flats.
4. The installation breaks one of the size limits below.

Being in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty does not change any of this.

Rooftop panels: Class A

Class A covers “solar PV or solar thermal equipment on the roof of (a) a dwellinghouse; or (b) any building within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse”. So it also covers a garage or outbuilding in your garden. It is not permitted development if:

• it would protrude more than 20cm beyond the plane of a roof slope that faces onto and is visible from a road
• it would be higher than the highest part of a ridged roof, or more than 1.5 metres above the plane of a flat roof
• it is in a World Heritage Site or conservation area and the roof slope faces onto and is visible from a road, or any part fitted to a flat roof would be visible from a road
• it would extend beyond the edge of the existing roof
• it is within the curtilage of a listed building, unless listed building consent has already been granted

The 20cm limit is narrower than most guides say. The Order applies it to road-facing, visible slopes only. In practice a standard on-roof mounting sits well under 20cm anyway, so it rarely matters.

There are two conditions. The primary purpose must be to provide heat or energy for use within the curtilage of the house. And equipment that is no longer used must be removed “as soon as reasonably practicable”.

Panels on walls: Class B

Wall-mounted panels are less common, but Class B allows them on the house, on a building in the curtilage or on a garden wall. The limits:

• within 3 metres of the boundary and above 4 metres in height, they must not extend more than 20cm beyond the plane of the wall
• panels on a wall with a chimney must not go above the highest part of the roof
• in a conservation area or World Heritage Site, the wall must not face onto and be visible from a road
• the listed building exclusion applies

Ground-mounted panels: Class C

Class C covers “stand alone solar” in your garden. It is not permitted development if:

• there would be more than one stand-alone array
• the array would be bigger than 14 square metres
• it would be higher than 2 metres
• it would be nearer to a road that bounds the property than the part of the house nearest that road
• it is within the curtilage of a listed building

Fourteen square metres is about seven standard 400W-class panels, so roughly 2.8 to 3kW. Class C has no conservation area restriction, only the listed building one. For a bigger array in a field or paddock, you need an application; our ground-mounted solar guide and farm solar guide cover that.

AONBs: no extra restriction

Several guides say permitted development is restricted in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. That is the English position. In Northern Ireland, the Order defines “designated area” to include AONBs, but Part 2 never uses that term. The solar classes restrict conservation areas, World Heritage Sites and listed buildings, and nothing else.

So if you live in one of NI’s eight AONBs (Antrim Coast and Glens, Binevenagh, Causeway Coast, Lagan Valley, Mourne, Ring of Gullion, Sperrin, and Strangford and Lecale, per DAERA), your rooftop and garden solar rights are the same as anyone else’s. The one caveat applies everywhere: a council can remove permitted development rights in a specific place with an Article 4 direction. Belfast’s directions for Malone Park and Adelaide Park cover things like windows, doors and boundaries, not solar. If you are unsure, ask your council whether an Article 4 direction covers your street.

Listed buildings

If your home is listed, permitted development does not apply until listed building consent has been granted. Before anyone alters a listed building they must apply to the council, which consults the Historic Environment Division of the Department for Communities (nidirect). The controls apply equally to every grade: A, B+, B, B1 and B2 (DfC).

To check whether a building is listed, search the NI Buildings Database. Listed building consent carries no fee. Panels on a rear slope or an outbuilding, in a dark all-black finish, are the proposals most likely to be accepted, and pre-application advice from the council is worth asking for.

Conservation areas by council

The Department for Infrastructure keeps an A to Z of historic conservation area guides but tells readers to check with the council for current boundaries. Each council has held planning powers since 2015, so the council is the authority to ask. I checked every link below on 23 September 2026.

Council	Where to check	Conservation areas (as the council states)
Antrim and Newtownabbey	Planning page (no dedicated list found)	Not stated; the DfI list includes Antrim town centre, Randalstown and Merville Garden Village
Ards and North Down	Conservation areas	Page names Donaghadee, Holywood and Portaferry
Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon	Conservation areas	5: Armagh City, Dromore, Loughgall, Lurgan, Richhill
Belfast	Article 4 directions and conservation areas, plus the council’s interactive maps	13, including Malone Park and Adelaide Park
Causeway Coast and Glens	Conservation areas	5: Ballycastle, Ballymoney, Bushmills, Cushendall, Cushendun
Derry City and Strabane	Conservation areas	5: Historic City, Clarendon Street, Magee, Sion Mills, Newtownstewart
Fermanagh and Omagh	Local development plan (no dedicated list found)	Not stated; the DfI list includes Enniskillen, Lisnaskea and Omagh
Lisburn and Castlereagh	Conservation areas	3: Hillsborough, Lisburn, Moira
Mid and East Antrim	Conservation areas	5: Carnlough, Carrickfergus, Glenarm, Gracehill, Whitehead
Mid Ulster	Planning information (no dedicated list found)	Not stated; the DfI list includes Dungannon, Moneymore, Moy and Caledon
Newry, Mourne and Down	Conservation areas	10, including Ardglass, Castlewellan and Saintfield

Three councils (Antrim and Newtownabbey, Fermanagh and Omagh, and Mid Ulster) did not have a page listing their conservation areas when I checked. For those, use the DfI list as a starting point and confirm with the council’s planning office. Ards and North Down’s page names three areas, and I could not confirm that it is the full set, so ask the council if your town is not one of them.

If you do need to apply

Fees (in force since 1 April 2025, Planning (Fees) Regulations):

Application	Fee
Householder planning application	£347 per dwelling
Certificate of lawful development for a proposal	£173.50 (half the planning fee)
Listed building consent	No fee

Time. The council has 8 weeks to decide a householder application before you can treat it as refused and appeal (General Development Procedure Order, article 20). The performance target for local applications is an average of 15 weeks. In 2025/26 the NI average was 19.6 weeks, and only 3 of the 11 councils met the target (DfI planning statistics, 26 August 2026). Plan for two to five months, not two.

The certificate route. If you are fairly sure the panels are permitted development but want it in writing (for a sale, a lender or a borderline road-facing slope), a certificate of lawful development for £173.50 is cheaper than a full application and settles the question.

What to submit. A householder application usually needs the form, a location plan, a site or roof plan showing the panels, elevations and photographs. A good installer will draw the roof layout for you, and many will prepare the application.

Planning is not the only paperwork

Two other steps apply whether or not you need planning permission:

• NIE Networks. Systems up to 16A per phase, about 3.68kW on a normal single-phase house, are notified under G98. Larger systems need G99 approval before connection. Your installer should do both. There is more in our G98 guide.
• Building regulations. The roof must carry the load and the electrical work must be certified. An MCS certified installer with registered electricians covers this as standard; ask for the certificates in the handover pack.

Northern Ireland is not the Republic

Search results often mix the two. The Republic of Ireland has its own planning exemptions under separate legislation, and they do not apply here. If a guide talks about “exempted development” or a national planning board, it is written for the Republic. In Northern Ireland the rules are the 2015 Order above and the decision sits with your council.

My advice

Ask your installer, at the survey, three questions: is the house listed, is it in a conservation area, and does the slope you want face a road? If the answer to all three is no and the panels stay below the ridge and inside the roof edge, you do not need to apply. If any answer is yes, check the council page above for your area before you sign anything. Fitting first and applying afterwards is the expensive way round. For the rest of the process from survey to switch-on, see the installation process guide.