UK Solar & Heat Pump Planning Lead Monitor

Find UK planning-application leads for solar PV, heat pumps, roofing, retrofit and energy-efficiency installers.

The Actor reads public planning data, scores applications by installer relevance and outputs spreadsheet-ready lead rows. It is designed for sales teams and lead-generation teams that need project-intent signals without collecting personal contact data.

What It Does

• Fetches public planning applications from the official Planning Data API by default.
• Optionally crawls public council planning search/list pages supplied by the user.
• Matches installer keywords such as solar panels, photovoltaic, PV, PV array, air source heat pump, ground source heat pump, roof works, retrofit and energy efficiency.
• Classifies leads as solar_pv, heat_pump, roofing and/or retrofit.
• Emits only rows that meet the configured relevance score and lead-type filters.
• Deduplicates rows within each run and across scheduled runs when emitOnlyNew is enabled.

Safe Data Posture

Planning records can include personal data. This Actor intentionally does not output applicant names, phone numbers or emails. It outputs planning reference, proposal summary, council/source identifiers, dates, score and the public source URL.

Use the data for legitimate B2B planning, research and installer lead triage. Do not use it for harassment, spam, doxxing or attempts to bypass source access controls.

Input Example

{
  "sourcePreset": "planning-data-api",
  "keywords": [
    "solar panels",
    "photovoltaic",
    "pv",
    "air source heat pump",
    "ground source heat pump",
    "retrofit"
  ],
  "leadTypes": ["solar_pv", "heat_pump", "retrofit"],
  "maxRecords": 200,
  "minScore": 5,
  "emitOnlyNew": false
}

For custom council pages:

{
  "sourcePreset": "custom",
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://example-council.gov.uk/planning/search",
      "sourceName": "Example Council planning search",
      "councilName": "Example Council",
      "region": "South West"
    }
  ],
  "leadTypes": ["solar_pv", "heat_pump"],
  "minScore": 5
}

Output Example

{
  "leadId": "8f6b...",
  "leadType": "solar_pv",
  "country": "UK",
  "region": "England",
  "councilName": "organisation-entity:109",
  "planningAuthorityEntity": "109",
  "applicationRef": "23/00002/FUL",
  "proposal": "Erection of a single storey extension with flat roof to rear and PV installation to pitched roof",
  "status": "decision issued",
  "submittedDate": "2025-05-30",
  "decisionDate": "2023-05-09",
  "sourceName": "Planning Data API - planning applications",
  "applicationUrl": "https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/entity/10000000000",
  "matchedKeywords": ["pv"],
  "leadTypes": ["solar_pv", "roofing"],
  "score": 13,
  "firstSeenAt": "2026-07-02T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Local Development

npm install
npm test
npm run check
npm start

Local runs use Apify local storage and do not require Apify cloud auth.

Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing with event name qualified_lead.

• Price: $0.05 per qualified lead
• Pricing start: 2026-07-17T00:00:00Z
• Platform rule: Apify requires pricing changes to be scheduled at least two weeks ahead, so runs before that date may execute without paid event charges.

Limitations

• The official Planning Data API is still a public-data feed and can be incomplete.
• Council pages vary widely; custom source parsing may need per-council adjustments.
• This Actor identifies planning-intent signals, not verified contact details or guaranteed sales opportunities.
• It does not provide legal advice on planning, GDPR or marketing outreach.