In brief
DESNZ counted 11,685 solar PV sites in Cheshire East at the end of 2025, up from 5,142 at the end of 2019, about 2.27 times as many. That is roughly 6.7 sites per hundred households, counting non-domestic sites too. Switch Together’s total is a small slice of it, and the data has no figure for Crewe alone.
The borough count, 2019 to 2025
Every year DESNZ issues renewable electricity figures for each local authority, and one of its series is a count of solar PV sites as at 31 December. For Cheshire East, the council area that includes Crewe, the count was 5,142 at the end of 2019 and 11,685 at the end of 2025.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| PV sites, end of 2019 | 5,142 |
| PV sites, end of 2025 | 11,685 |
| Added over the six years | 6,543 |
| 2025 count as a multiple of 2019 | ×2.27 |
| DESNZ household estimate | 174,900 |
| Sites per hundred households, 2025 | 6.7 |
Six years took the total to 2.27 times its 2019 level, an extra 6,543 sites. Measured against DESNZ’s estimate of 174,900 households in the borough, the 2025 count is about 6.7 sites for every hundred households, or one for roughly every 15. The same dataset holds the figures for each year in between, which show the path rather than just the two end points. Each figure is a snapshot taken at the end of the year, so a system switched on in the first days of January appears in the following year’s count, not the one before.
What a site count includes
The count is of sites, not households, and it covers every size of installation. A small array on a house counts as one site; so does a large array on a farm building, a school or a business, and so does a ground-mounted solar farm. The total therefore overstates the number of homes with panels, by an amount the headline figure cannot reveal.
That is why this guide gives the figure as sites per hundred households rather than as a share of homes. It is a measure of how common solar has become across the borough, not a statement that a given proportion of houses have panels. The dataset also reports installed capacity, which says more about scale; a single large site can outweigh hundreds of domestic ones on that measure.
How the household figures line up
DESNZ’s household estimate for Cheshire East, 174,900, is within a whisker of the census count of 174,854 households in 2021 (ONS via Nomis). The two come from different sources and dates, but the closeness gives some confidence that dividing one by the other produces a sensible ratio. The six Crewe wards in this guide hold 23,980 households between them, about 13.7% of the borough total.
Setting the count against owner-occupiers
Home solar is mainly a decision for owner-occupiers, who can act without a landlord or building owner. Applying the census owner-occupation rate for Cheshire East, 71.9%, to DESNZ’s household estimate gives roughly 125,753 owner-occupied households. Against that base, the 2025 site count is about 9.3 sites per hundred. The figure still includes non-domestic sites, so it overstates domestic take-up, but it is a fairer yardstick than all households for a borough where most people own their home.
Crewe is different on exactly this point. Across the six Crewe wards in this guide, about 52.5% of households own their home, well below the borough rate. The gap is widest in the town centre and narrowest in the semi-detached wards to the north and east.
What it cannot tell you about Crewe
The dataset stops at the council boundary. It does not split Cheshire East into towns or wards, so there is no official count of solar sites in Crewe on its own. This guide does not try to estimate one, because Crewe’s housing differs from the borough’s in ways that would make any simple share misleading.
Those differences are large. In Crewe Central, 40.2% of households rent privately and 38.6% live in flats; in Crewe South the private renting share is 42.4%. Across Cheshire East, 71.9% of households own their home. At the other end of the town, Crewe North (67.4% owner-occupied) and Crewe East (64.8%) look more like the borough. The full comparison is on Crewe homes by ward.
Why take-up may differ within the town
It is reasonable to expect solar to be less common where fewer people own the roof over their heads, though this guide has no figures to test it. A tenant cannot fit panels without the landlord, as renting in Crewe explains, and a leaseholder in a block of flats needs the building owner, as flats and solar sets out. The listed railway-company cottages need both planning permission and Listed Building Consent first; see the railway cottages page.
The owner-occupied semi-detached streets to the north and east face fewer of those hurdles, and their roofs are covered on semi-detached roofs. Landlords, who decide for a large part of the town centre, can read landlords and solar.
Switch Together in context
Cheshire East Council’s Switch Together group buy is the council’s own route into solar for households. The council reports that the scheme has put solar on more than five hundred homes, almost 2.9 MW in all, along with 3.22 MWh of battery storage. Set against the borough’s 11,685 PV sites at the end of 2025, the scheme’s homes make up about 4.8% of the total, and roughly 9% of the sites added between 2019 and 2025.
Those comparisons are approximate. The council’s figure and the DESNZ count are compiled separately and to different dates, and the scheme covers a wider area than one council. What they show is that most of the growth came from households and businesses acting on their own, not through the group buy. The scheme’s 2026 round closed to registrations on 25 September 2026; the routes open now are on grants and schemes.
What the count does not measure
A rising count says nothing about how well the systems perform, whether they are sized sensibly or how much of their output households use. For a household weighing up solar, the borough total is context, not a recommendation: the questions that matter are about the particular roof, the household’s electricity use and the paperwork, covered on choosing an installer and in short form on the FAQ page.
Batteries sit outside this count
The DESNZ series used here counts solar PV sites; it is not a count of home batteries, and this guide does not use it for storage. The only local battery figure on these pages is the council’s report of 3.22 MWh of storage delivered through Switch Together, which covers that scheme alone. Whether storage suits a particular home is a separate question, covered on batteries in Crewe.
Where the figures come from
Every figure on this page links to its source, and each source was read on the date shown at the top. Ratios and shares are calculated from the published counts and rounded to one decimal place. How this guide collects and checks figures is explained on data and sources, and the other guides are listed on all guides. A question about the figures, or about a particular home, can go through the question form.