Kingston & St Andrew solar guide

Solar for a city roof or a home in the St Andrew hills.

Sunshine and shade vary between the city, coast and hills. Use this guide to explore monthly output for your area, with separate figures for Kingston and St Andrew. An installer still needs to check your own roof.

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.

Typical year

7,696 kWh about 641 kWh per month on average

Middle half of locations

7,380–8,069 kWh Differences between locations; your roof can change the result

Strongest month

March · 695 kWh Long-term average, not a forecast

Weakest month

November · 584 kWh About 16% below March

Colour map of modelled annual solar electricity output across Kingston and St Andrew. Output is stronger across the southern urban and coastal area and lower in the northern hills. — **Annual solar electricity across Kingston & St Andrew** Each square is approximately 1 km. Small coastal and offshore fragments reflect the source boundary and grid resolution.

About 1,280About 1,740 kWh/kWp

Why one page still needs two figures

Kingston’s coastal cells are stronger. St Andrew’s hills lower the combined result.

Kingston’s mapped cells average about 1,683 kWh per installed kW each year. St Andrew averages about 1,534, with much more variation between the southern urban belt and higher northern terrain.

The combined figure is calculated from all 567 mapped cells—not by averaging the two parish averages. Compact Kingston therefore does not receive the same weight as the much larger St Andrew.

Kingston: 1,683 kWh/kWp
St Andrew: 1,534 kWh/kWp
Combined cells: 567

Month by month

Useful year-round, with a softer end to the year.

March is strongest in the long-term model. November is weakest, but still produces about 84% of March’s average output—nothing like the winter collapse seen in northern climates.

621Jan

608Feb

695Mar

655Apr

650May

652Jun

692Jul

679Aug

644Sep

617Oct

584Nov

599Dec

Estimated monthly generation in kWh for the selected system size. Hover, tap or focus a bar for its detailed value. The figures are long-term estimates, not a weather forecast.

View the monthly figures as a table

Month	Per installed kW	5 kW system
January	124.3 kWh	621 kWh
February	121.6 kWh	608 kWh
March	139.0 kWh	695 kWh
April	130.9 kWh	655 kWh
May	130.0 kWh	650 kWh
June	130.4 kWh	652 kWh
July	138.4 kWh	692 kWh
August	135.7 kWh	679 kWh
September	128.8 kWh	644 kWh
October	123.5 kWh	617 kWh
November	116.8 kWh	584 kWh
December	119.9 kWh	599 kWh

What changes on a real roof

Urban shade and hillside exposure matter more than the postcode.

What shades the roof through the day?Nearby buildings, boundary trees, water tanks and telecoms equipment can make a city roof very different from the open-resource map.
Can installers reach and work on it safely?Dense lots, steep access roads and multi-storey roofs affect scaffolding, lifting, cable routes and the realism of an initial quote.
How is the array fixed for hurricane winds?Hillside and exposed coastal roofs need a site-specific fixing design. Ask how loads reach the structure, not only for a panel wind rating.
Is salt or moisture exposure relevant?Coastal Kingston and exposed ridges need appropriate rails, fasteners, enclosures and warranty conditions—not a generic equipment list.

Use the panel and roof guide to test the mounting and equipment answers in a quotation.

Generation is not the bill

A 5 kW system making 641 kWh a month will not automatically erase a 641 kWh bill.

Daytime use is worth more

Solar used in the home avoids the retail cost of a JPS Jamaica unit. Surplus exported through net billing receives a much lower credit.

A battery changes timing

A battery can carry daytime generation into evening peaks and provide outage cover, but it does not make the panels generate more.

Kingston and St Andrew still differ

Choose the correct parish in the calculator. It uses the separate local yield rather than the combined page average.

How we calculated this

Grouped for people. Calculated from the underlying places.

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 567 Global Solar Atlas PVOUT grid cells whose centres fall inside the Kingston or St Andrew parish boundaries. The combined mean and geographic range are calculated across those cells. We also calculated each parish separately.

The source models a free-standing crystalline-silicon system at optimum fixed tilt. Its approximately 1 km cells are useful for area comparison and early planning, but cannot see a tree, adjoining building, roof direction or structural condition.

Solar source: Global Solar Atlas 2.0 PVOUT
Source years: 1999–2018 long-term average
Central range: 1,476–1,614 kWh/kWp/year
Calculation: Combined from the source grid cells

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.