Commercial Solar Installations

See Our Commercial Work

We document every major commercial installation. Watch our team at work — from roof surveys and structural assessments through to final commissioning and handover.

50kW Warehouse — West Yorkshire

100kW Farm — South Yorkshire

Full project videos available on our Instagram and Facebook channels. More commercial case studies added regularly.

What Size System Do You Need?

We design every system around your actual consumption data, not guesswork. Below are typical figures based on current commercial electricity rates. Your site survey will produce exact projections.

Estimates based on commercial electricity rates, Yorkshire solar irradiance, and typical self-consumption rates. DESNZ put the average non-domestic electricity price at 24.51p/kWh including the Climate Change Levy in quarter 2 2026, though it varies by consumption band — we model against your own contracted rate rather than an average. Actual figures provided in your written quote.

Benefits for Your Business

Commercial solar is one of the most effective ways to reduce business operating costs, improve sustainability credentials, and protect against volatile energy prices. With commercial electricity rates significantly higher than domestic, the financial case for business solar is even stronger than residential.

We Only Install Tier-One Equipment

We don't install budget panels or cheap inverters to win on price. Every commercial system uses tier-one solar panels (Aiko Neostar, DMEG TopCon, Jinko Tiger Neo) paired with commercial-grade SolarEdge or string inverters, and optional battery storage from Tesla, Alpha ESS, or SigenEnergy.

Commercial Systems We Install

Industries We Serve

Commercial Solar and Tax: What a UK Business Can Actually Claim

The tax treatment is the most frequently misstated thing on commercial solar websites, and getting it wrong changes the real cost of a system by a large margin. Below is the position as HMRC and the legislation state it, with the sources, so you can take it to your accountant rather than take our word for it. We install solar; we are not tax advisers, and nothing here is advice on your own affairs.

Solar panels are special rate plant, so full expensing does not apply

HMRC's capital allowances helpsheet HS252, updated 6 April 2026, puts solar on the special rate side of the line: “Special rate assets include integral features of buildings and structures, solar panels”. The same helpsheet is explicit about the consequence — “Companies cannot claim full expensing for special rate assets”. Any quote or guide that tells your company it can write off the whole cost of a solar installation through full expensing is wrong, and that error is common enough to be worth checking in writing. Source: HMRC helpsheet HS252.

The routes that do apply: the Annual Investment Allowance first, then a 50% first-year allowance

The Annual Investment Allowance is the main route, and it does cover special rate expenditure. GOV.UK states that the “AIA amount is £1 million” and that you “can claim AIA on most plant and machinery up to the AIA amount”, available to sole traders, partnerships whose members are all individuals, and limited companies. The separate first-year allowances guidance confirms the point for special rate plant specifically: “Expenditure on special rate plant or machinery may qualify for the 100% annual investment allowance.”

Above the AIA the arithmetic changes. For companies, “If your claim is for special rate plant or machinery you can deduct half of the cost under the 50% first-year allowance”, and the balance goes into the special rate pool, written down at “6% of the balance in your special rate pool”. In practice most single-site commercial rooftop arrays sit inside the £1 million allowance, so the first-year deduction is usually the full cost — but by the AIA route, not by full expensing. If your capital spend for the year will exceed £1 million, model it before you commit. Sources: GOV.UK Annual Investment Allowance and GOV.UK full expensing and 50% first-year allowances.

Business rates: the generating plant sits outside the rateable value until 2035

In England, the Valuation for Rating (Plant and Machinery) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 carve out “plant and machinery used or intended to be used for the generation, storage, transformation or transmission of power” where the technology relied on is mainly or exclusively from a named list that includes “photovoltaics” and “solar power”. The regulations came into force on 1 April 2022 and the exception applies “in relation to any day before 1st April 2035”. Read it precisely: this changes how the plant is valued, rather than applying a relief to your bill, and it does not settle how the land or the structures accommodating an array are treated. Put your own assessment to your rating adviser. Source: S.I. 2022/405 on legislation.gov.uk.

VAT: the 0% rate is a residential relief, not a business one

This one is worth saying plainly, because the 0% VAT headline is everywhere. HMRC's VAT Notice 708/6 scopes the relief: “The relief for energy-saving materials applies to installations in residential accommodation.” From 1 February 2024 it was extended to buildings “intended for use solely for a relevant charitable purpose”, where relevant charitable use means use “otherwise than in the course or furtherance of a business”. The zero rate runs “from 1 May 2023 to 31 March 2027”, after which it reverts to the 5% reduced rate. A trading business installing solar on its own commercial premises therefore falls outside the zero rate. What rate applies to your job, and whether your business can recover the VAT, depends on your VAT position — another question for your accountant, not for an installer. Source: VAT Notice 708/6.

Your Half-Hourly Data Is the Design Input, Not Your Annual kWh

The difference between a commercial system that pays back and one that disappoints is almost never the panels. It is whether the array was sized against the shape of your demand, half-hour by half-hour, instead of against a single annual consumption figure lifted off a bill. For most businesses that data already exists, and you are entitled to it.

Most medium and large businesses are already half-hourly settled

Great Britain settles electricity in half-hour blocks. Ofgem's factsheet on Balancing and Settlement Code modifications P272 and P322 explains that most consumers in Profile Classes 5 to 8 “already have advanced meters” that can record their consumption in each half-hour, and that P272 “requires that these customers must be settled using their actual half-hourly consumption data from advanced meters instead of estimates”. The companion change, P322, “took effect on 1 April 2017” and requires suppliers to half-hourly settle those consumers “within 45 business days of acquiring the customer, or renewing their contract”. An advanced meter, in Ofgem's words, “is one that can record half-hourly consumption data and gives the supplier remote access to that data”.

You can check which side of that line you sit on from your own bill. Ofgem's test is to look at the supply number: “If the first two-digit number, in the box to the immediate right of the ‘S’, is 05, 06, 07 or 08 and you have an advanced meter”, you are in scope. If you are, your supplier already holds a year of your half-hourly consumption. Ask for it before anyone quotes you a system size — it is the only honest basis for a self-consumption estimate, and it is the first thing we ask for. Source: Ofgem, BSC Modifications P272 and P322 factsheet.

Self-consumption, not generation, is the number that pays

A unit you use on site is worth the price you would otherwise have paid for it. DESNZ reports that “In quarter 2 2026, the average electricity price including CCL was 24.51 pence per kWh, a year-on-year increase of 2.0%, although this varies by size band”. A unit you export instead earns whatever your export tariff pays: under the Smart Export Guarantee the rate “will be determined by your chosen SEG licensee”, and must be above zero. The gap between those two numbers is the whole design problem. Maximising the overlap between generation and load beats maximising kilowatt-peak on the roof, every time.

This is also the structural reason the commercial case differs from the domestic one, rather than just being bigger. A household's demand peaks early in the morning and again in the evening, when a roof is generating little or nothing, which is why home systems so often need a battery to make the numbers work. A business running a weekday day shift — a warehouse, a workshop, an office floor, a cold store, a dairy — has its heaviest load during the hours the array is at its best. That overlap, not the roof area, is what shortens a commercial payback. Sources: DESNZ Quarterly Energy Prices, September 2026 and Ofgem, Smart Export Guarantee for generators.

Check your maximum import capacity before designing around a battery or chargers

If your site has a current transformer meter, Ofgem notes that “the original connection agreement with the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) should include agreement of the amount of capacity (known as maximum import capacity (MIC)) that the DNO reserved for the site on its electricity network”, and warns that a consumer “should however be aware of exceeding the agreed MIC and potential penalties”. You can ask your DNO for a copy of the connection agreement to check what yours is. It matters here because solar, battery storage and workplace EV charging are usually considered together, and chargers push the import side of that figure rather than the export side.

Export payments at commercial scale, and what certification Ofgem actually asks for

The Smart Export Guarantee supports installations with a total installed capacity up to 5MW, so a commercial array is comfortably within scope. For the export to count it has to be metered, and Ofgem's guidance for generators is specific: the meter “must be capable of taking half-hourly measurements and have an export MPAN”. That export MPAN is a different number from the import MPAN on your bill, and your SEG licensee issues it. The licensee does not have to be the supplier who sells you electricity, and Ofgem actively encourages shopping around, noting that “applicants are encouraged to shop around to see which supplier offers the best tariff”.

The certification requirement is where commercial differs from domestic, and it is widely misreported. For PV installations up to 50kW, Ofgem says applicants “will be asked to demonstrate that their installation and installer are suitably certified” — typically an MCS certificate, though the guidance also accepts schemes recognised as equivalent to MCS. For everything above that, the guidance reads differently: “For all other installations, applicants will be asked to demonstrate that the installation is suitably certified. SEG licensees have discretion in how they satisfy themselves that the installation is suitably certified.” If export income forms part of your business case, ask your prospective SEG licensee what evidence they want before you sign anything that assumes one particular scheme. Source: Ofgem, Smart Export Guarantee: Guidance for Generators.

G99 and the DNO: the Item That Decides Your Programme

On a commercial job the grid connection, not the scaffold, is usually the longest lead item, and it is the one most quotes leave vague. The connection standards are national; the forms, fees and timescales belong to your own Distribution Network Operator. The procedure quoted below comes from National Grid Electricity Distribution's published G99 connection procedures guidance, because it is public and it is specific — check the equivalent document for the DNO that serves your site.

No commercial array qualifies for G98

G98 is the standard for small-scale embedded generation. NGED's guidance describes that population as “Small Scale Embedded Generators (less than 16A per phase)”. Sixteen amps per phase is about 3.68 kW per phase at 230 V, so it covers domestic systems and little else. Every array in the 25 kW to 500 kW range is therefore a G99 connection, and that is a different thing in kind: the DNO has to be engaged and has to accept the application before the system is built, rather than being told about it afterwards. Copy that implies a commercial system can be notified under G98, or that G98 covers anything up to 50 kW, is simply wrong, and it is wrong by months of programme.

Which G99 route your system falls into

NGED sets out the bands plainly: “Type A PGFs less than 50kW should apply using the application form A1-1”, while “All other PGFs connecting under EREC G99 should apply using the standard application form”. Its own table separates systems less than 50kW, those greater than 50kW and less than 1MW as Type A, and the larger Types B to D above that. So a 25 kW to 500 kW array is a Type A power generating module, applied for on either the short form or the standard one depending on which side of 50 kW it lands.

There are also fast-track routes for small generation installations, labelled SGI-1, SGI-2 and SGI-3. They are worth knowing about mainly so you know they will not apply to you: they cap at 16 A, 32 A and 60 A per phase respectively, with a G100 export limitation scheme required on the latter two. Where they do apply, NGED is clear about the sequence — “This is an application before installation process” — with an acceptance or network study outcome inside 10 working days, up to three months to install and commission, and a commissioning form back to the DNO within 28 days.

What the standard route involves, and the dates that bind you

NGED recommends starting early, and says why: discussing plans at an early stage “can help to provide a better insight to any potential network reinforcement and complexity issues that may arise and help you to establish the viability of an individual scheme before committing to a formal application and incurring associated costs”. Two paid pre-application options exist. A budget estimate is “a desktop exercise” that “will not involve a site visit, analysis of the wider network or any technical studies”. A feasibility study goes further, carrying out “preliminary network analysis” and identifying reinforcement works, but it “will not provide you with a Connection Offer”.

The formal application asks for, among other things, a site plan showing the boundary and buildings, the proposed location of each metering point, a required date for connection, and the “Maximum capacity (kVA) at each metering point to be connected”. What comes back prices the contestable and non-contestable works and “will include a letter of acceptance. The signing of the letter of acceptance enters the Customer into a binding contract for the works.” Then the clock starts: “Connection offers are valid for 90 days after which they automatically expire.” A single further 90-day extension may be granted, but it has to be requested in writing no more than ten days before the original expiry. At the build stage a Power Generating Module Document evidences G99 compliance, and “A draft PGMD should be submitted at least 28 days before the Customer wishes to synchronise the PGM for the first time.”

Two things move a commercial programme more than anything on the roof: network reinforcement, which surfaces at feasibility rather than at commissioning, and that 90-day validity on an accepted offer. Both argue for opening the DNO conversation at the same time as the roof survey, not after the kit is specified. Where the local network cannot take the export, a G100 export limitation scheme is the recognised route, and it is less painful than it sounds — limiting export is not limiting generation, and on a site with high daytime load most of the output was never going to leave the building anyway. Source: NGED, G99 Connection Procedures Guidance Document.

Before the Panels: Roof, Asbestos, Lease and EPC

Four things stop more commercial solar projects than any technical issue with the array, and all four are about the building rather than the kit. On an older industrial unit they need answers before a kilowatt-peak figure means anything.

On a pre-2000 building, assume asbestos

HSE is direct about the starting assumption: “If the building was built or refurbished before 2000, assume that there is asbestos in it.” The duty to manage it sits in regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, and it falls on whoever has an obligation for the repair and maintenance of the premises under a contract or tenancy — and, where no such obligation covers part of the premises, on whoever controls that part. The regulation requires a suitable and sufficient assessment of whether asbestos is present, a written record of the findings and of every review, a risk assessment, and a written plan that includes telling anyone liable to disturb the material where it is and what condition it is in.

For solar this is not paperwork. Roof fixings go through the sheet, and HSE warns in the same guidance to “Take care not to walk on fragile material, for example asbestos cement roofs”. So on a pre-2000 unit the asbestos register, or a management survey where there is no register, is a precondition of a roof-mounted design rather than a tidy-up afterwards. Where the roof turns out to be asbestos cement, the realistic options are a ground-mount or carport array, a re-roof first, or deferring the project — and that is a decision for survey stage, not something to discover halfway through an install. Sources: HSE, find out if asbestos could be present and Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, regulation 4.

Structure: dead load plus wind uplift, checked against drawings

An array adds permanent load to a roof and changes how wind acts on it, including uplift at the edges and corners. On an industrial unit the question is rarely whether the sheeting can take it but whether the purlins and the frame can, and how the fixings transfer load into them. That is a calculation against the building's own structural drawings, and it is why a survey can legitimately change a design or rule a roof out altogether. Any roof-mounted commercial design needs that appraisal before it is priced, and a quote issued without it is a guess wearing a number.

If you lease the building, consent comes first

Most commercial leases contain a covenant against alterations or improvements without the landlord's consent. Section 19(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 deems a covenant “against the making of improvements without a licence or consent” to be subject to a proviso that the consent “is not to be unreasonably withheld”. That is a protection, not a shortcut: you still have to ask, and the lease will usually dictate the process and who pays for it.

The questions the statute does not answer are the commercial ones, and they are the ones to settle in writing before an order is placed: who owns the array, who keeps the benefit of the generation, what happens on assignment or at lease end, and whether reinstatement will be required. Where a landlord will not consent to roof works, a ground-mount array on land inside your own demise, or a landlord-funded array with the benefit reflected in the rent, are the usual alternatives worth exploring. Source: Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, section 19.

EPC and MEES: what the rules say now, not what older guides say

This bites if you let the building out rather than occupy it. The current minimum for privately rented non-domestic property in England and Wales is an EPC E rating, and GOV.UK confirms it has applied to all such property since 1 April 2023 “even where there has been no change in tenancy”, covering leases granted for a term certain of more than six months and less than 99 years. Enforcement sits with local weights and measures authorities, who can issue compliance notices and financial penalties.

The future position changed in June 2026, and a great deal of published advice has not caught up. In its interim response, updated 18 June 2026, the government confirmed that “the previously proposed interim EPC C milestone for 2027 will not be taken forward”. Instead, “from 2031, it is proposed that all private rented buildings over 1,000 square metres in England and Wales” “will need to reach a higher standard of energy efficiency of EPC B, where cost effective”, while “the intention is for buildings below 1,000 square metres to continue to be subject to the current minimum standard of EPC E”. The same document confirms that “existing flexibility mechanisms, including the 7-year payback test and exemptions, will remain in place”, and that any of it “will only take effect following the successful passage of secondary legislation through Parliament”.

Read practically: if you are a landlord of a rented building over 1,000 square metres, solar is worth modelling against a proposed 2031 EPC B target as well as against the energy saving. If you own and occupy, MEES does not bite at all and the case stands or falls on the half-hourly numbers further up this page. Whether a particular array moves a particular rating is a question for the energy assessor working to the official methodology, and not something any installer should promise in a quote. Sources: GOV.UK non-domestic MEES landlord guidance and the non-domestic MEES interim response.

Commercial Solar: Further Questions

These sit alongside the general solar questions in the FAQ section lower down the page, and cover the points businesses raise that homeowners never do.