Typical year
8,109 kWhabout 676 kWh per month on averageClarendon solar guide
Strong southern sun, with a clear north–south divide.
Clarendon contains one of the stronger solar belts in Jamaica, but the result around May Pen and the southern plain is not the same as higher terrain toward Chapelton.
Local data guide · published 31 August 2026
Try a system size
What would that mean on a roof?
These figures estimate electricity from the panels, not money saved. A kWh is one unit of electricity on your bill; kW describes the panel system’s rated size. Your savings depend on when you use that electricity, whether you store it in a battery and whether you send any to JPS Jamaica.
Middle half of locations
7,749–8,536 kWhDifferences between locations; your roof can change the resultStrongest month
March · 740 kWhLong-term average, not a forecastWeakest month
November · 643 kWhAbout 13% below March
About 1,490About 1,790 kWh/kWp
The parish is not one number
The southern plain leads. Upper Clarendon is more moderate.
The map strengthens markedly south of May Pen toward Hayes, Lionel Town and the coast. Northern and central upland cells are lower, although still useful for rooftop solar.
That geographic spread matters, but a shaded roof or poor cable route can remove more generation than moving several kilometres across the parish.
- Cells analysed
- 1,393
- Central geographic range
- 1,550–1,707
- Typical variation
- About ±5%
Month by month
How does solar output change through the year?
March is strongest in the long-term model. November produces about 87% of that output, so the annual figure should not be treated as twelve identical months.
View the monthly figures as a table
| Month | Per installed kW | 5 kW system |
|---|---|---|
| January | 133.6 kWh | 668 kWh |
| February | 129.1 kWh | 645 kWh |
| March | 148.0 kWh | 740 kWh |
| April | 142.2 kWh | 711 kWh |
| May | 134.8 kWh | 674 kWh |
| June | 128.9 kWh | 645 kWh |
| July | 139.6 kWh | 698 kWh |
| August | 140.2 kWh | 701 kWh |
| September | 135.5 kWh | 678 kWh |
| October | 131.9 kWh | 660 kWh |
| November | 128.6 kWh | 643 kWh |
| December | 129.3 kWh | 647 kWh |
Before asking for quotes
Questions worth asking in Clarendon.
- How exposed is the roof to open-plain winds?Southern Clarendon has broad, exposed sites. The installer should explain the rail, bracket, fastener and structural load path—not only quote a panel wind rating.
- Can heat escape beneath the panels?Hot panels produce less. Sensible clearance above metal or concrete roofs and equipment sited out of direct sun matter in the hotter lowlands.
- Is cleaning access realistic?Road dust, farming activity and nearby industry can increase soiling. Safe access matters more than promising an aggressive cleaning schedule.
- Is coastal-grade hardware needed?Properties toward the southern coast should check salt-mist suitability, fastener materials, enclosures and warranty exclusions.
Use the Jamaica panel and roof guide to test the mounting and equipment answers in a quotation.
Generation is not the bill
A 5 kW system making 676 kWh a month will not automatically erase the same-sized bill.
Timing decides value
Solar used in the home avoids the retail cost of a JPS Jamaica unit. Surplus sent through net billing receives a much lower export credit.
A battery moves energy
A battery can carry daytime generation into evening use and provide outage cover, but it does not make the panels generate more.
Your roof changes the result
Shade, direction, heat, dirt, cable losses and equipment choices move a real installation away from the parish benchmark. Use the panel guide to test those roof assumptions.
How we calculated this
Where do these estimates come from?
We use long-term sunshine data to estimate panel output across the parish. These are planning averages, not a forecast for your roof. Shade, roof direction and equipment can change the result.
See the data, calculation and source assumptions
We selected the 1,393 Global Solar Atlas PVOUT grid cells whose centres fall inside the Clarendon parish boundary, then calculated the annual mean, central 50% range and monthly means.
The source models a free-standing crystalline-silicon system at optimum fixed tilt. It is useful for parish comparison and early planning, not a guarantee for a particular roof.
- Solar source
- Global Solar Atlas 2.0 PVOUT
- Source years
- 1999–2018 long-term average
- Spatial resolution
- 30 arc-seconds, approximately 1 km
- Calculation
- Jamaica Solar Check parish aggregation
Solar data obtained from Global Solar Atlas 2.0, developed and operated by Solargis on behalf of the World Bank Group with ESMAP funding. Source data © 2019 Solargis, CC BY 4.0. Parish calculations and colour map are adaptations by Jamaica Solar Check; the source organisations do not endorse this site. Boundary geometry: geoBoundaries JAM ADM1, sourced from OpenStreetMap/Wambacher, CC BY-SA 2.0.