- Back-to-back
- A terraced house that shares its rear wall with another facing the next street, so it owns one roof slope and has no back door. Leeds has the largest surviving group in the UK. Read more
- Through-terrace
- A terraced house with a front and a back, owning both slopes of its roof. Read more
- Offshoot
- The narrow rear extension on many Victorian terraces, which can shade the main back slope. Read more
- Hipped roof
- A roof that slopes down on the sides as well as front and back, leaving smaller, angled faces for panels. Read more
- Party wall
- The wall shared with a neighbour; on terraces the chimney stacks usually sit on it.
- Permitted development
- Work national rules allow without a planning application, within limits. Most roof solar on houses is permitted development. Read more
- Part 14, Class A
- The permitted-development class for solar on a house or block of flats, replaced from 27 August 2026. Read more
- Conservation area
- An area protected for its special character. Leeds has 80. Read more
- Listed building
- A building on the national list of special interest; Leeds has 2,368 entries. Solar needs listed building consent. Read more
- Article 4 direction
- A council order removing particular permitted-development rights in an area. Leeds's best-known one concerns shared houses, not solar. Read more
- HMO
- A house in multiple occupation: a home shared by several unrelated people, such as a student let. Read more
- Prior approval
- A decision the planning authority makes on one aspect of a scheme, such as the look of panels on a flat roof in a conservation area.
- Lawful development certificate
- A council certificate confirming that work does not need planning permission.
- Northern Powergrid
- The company that owns and runs the electricity network across Leeds and Yorkshire. Read more
- G98 and G99
- The connection routes for small generators: G98 up to 16 A per phase (3.68 kW single-phase), connected and then notified; G99 for larger systems, agreed beforehand. Read more
- Export limiting
- Controls that cap how much a system can send to the network at once. Read more
- Warm Homes: Local Grant
- The government-funded grant for lower-income households in less efficient private homes, run in Leeds by the city council. Read more
- EPC
- Energy Performance Certificate: a home's efficiency rating from A to G. Read more
- Optimiser
- A small device on each panel that stops a shaded panel holding back the rest. Read more
- Microinverter
- A small inverter fitted to each panel, an alternative to optimisers on part-shaded roofs.
- Highway licence
- Council permission to put scaffold on a pavement or road; in Leeds the council is the highway authority. Read more
- kW and kWh
- kW is the size of a system; kWh is the energy it makes. A kW on a south roof in central Leeds makes about 952 kWh a year. Read more
- PVGIS
- The European Commission's solar model, the source of every output figure here. Read more
- MCS
- The Microgeneration Certification Scheme for installers and products, needed for an export rate. Read more
- Export rate
- What a supplier pays for electricity your panels send to the network, under Ofgem's rules. Read more
- Plug-in solar
- Small panels that plug into a socket, legal up to 800 W from 27 August 2026. Read more
Glossary
Leeds solar glossary
Talking to installers about a Leeds house brings its own words: house types that hardly exist elsewhere, planning terms, and the language of the electricity network. Each is explained here in plain English, with a link to where it matters.
Checked 3 November 2026 · Written and published independently by SEO-DONS LTD
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