Manchester solar guide

Highland roofs still have a strong solar resource.

Manchester sits close to the Jamaican national average, but the Mandeville plateau, steep interior sites and warmer southern edge create different roof-level questions.

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

8,007 kWhabout 667 kWh per month on average

Middle half of locations

7,849–8,138 kWhDifferences between locations; your roof can change the result

Strongest month

March · 727 kWhLong-term average, not a forecast

Weakest month

February · 633 kWhAbout 13% below March

Colour map of modelled annual solar electricity output across Manchester. — **Annual solar electricity across Manchester**Each square is approximately 1 km. The stepped edge shows the source resolution rather than pretending the estimate is more precise.

About 1,470About 1,750 kWh/kWp

The parish is not one number

The south is strongest. The central plateau is steadier.

The map shows the strongest output toward the parish’s southern edge. Mandeville and much of the central highland remain close to the parish average, with smaller pockets of lower output on higher or more cloud-affected terrain.

Manchester’s middle 50% is relatively compact, so roof shade, slope and access will usually matter more than the parish-wide location difference.

Cells analysed: 1,044
Central geographic range: 1,570–1,628
Typical variation: About ±2%

Month by month

How does solar output change through the year?

March is strongest in the long-term model. February produces about 87% of that output, so the annual figure should not be treated as twelve identical months.

664Jan

633Feb

727Mar

695Apr

669May

640Jun

692Jul

694Aug

668Sep

647Oct

634Nov

643Dec

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	132.8 kWh	664 kWh
February	126.6 kWh	633 kWh
March	145.5 kWh	727 kWh
April	138.9 kWh	695 kWh
May	133.8 kWh	669 kWh
June	128.0 kWh	640 kWh
July	138.4 kWh	692 kWh
August	138.9 kWh	694 kWh
September	133.7 kWh	668 kWh
October	129.4 kWh	647 kWh
November	126.8 kWh	634 kWh
December	128.6 kWh	643 kWh

Before asking for quotes

Questions worth asking in Manchester.

Does hill shade arrive early?A ridge, tall tree or neighbouring roof can shorten the useful solar day even where the annual map looks strong. Ask for a shade study, not a visual guess from the road.
Can the installer work safely on the site?Steep roads, split-level homes and pitched roofs affect scaffolding, lifting, cable routes and the realism of a remote quote.
Where will the inverter and battery sit?Manchester’s cooler air does not make a sun-facing equipment wall acceptable. Use a dry, ventilated position with practical service access.
How is hurricane uplift handled?The mounting design must connect through the roof covering into sound structure, with waterproofing details written into the proposal.

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 667 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 1,044 Global Solar Atlas PVOUT grid cells whose centres fall inside the Manchester 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.