Commercial solar for industrial units.

This page is for the operators and landlords behind the region's industrial units: the multi-let trade estates, the converted mill floors, the post-war workshops and the modern light-industrial sheds. Mixed occupiers, mixed roofs, mixed ages, and almost all of them carrying a steady weekday load that solar can offset.

Industrial units are worth modelling because the demand is the right shape and the roof area is usually there. The catch is that no two units read the same. Roof age, pitch, covering and structural loading vary enormously across a single estate, so this is a sector where the survey earns its place. We start with how each unit actually uses electricity, then check whether the roof can carry an array before we size one.

Solar pays best when the electricity is used where it is made. A unit consumed on site offsets an expensive import; a unit exported is paid far less. So the value of a commercial array tracks how well its output lines up with the building's demand, and on a typical industrial unit that match tends to be good. Light-industrial occupiers run machinery, compressors, extraction, lighting and small-power load across the working day, which is exactly when generation is highest, so a high share is self-consumed rather than exported.

The qualifier is the roof, not the load. Older mill and post-war stock can carry lower structural loading than a modern shed, and roof coverings vary from standing-seam metal to fragile or asbestos-cement sheets that change what can safely be installed. On a multi-let estate the metering split between landlord and tenants also governs how the benefit is shared and feeds the EPC and MEES position of let space. None of that rules a unit out, but it does mean the daytime match is confirmed against the real half-hourly data, and the roof against a real survey, before any panel count is quoted.

Industrial units sit at the smaller, more varied end of the commercial range, often a single shallow-pitch or flat roof per unit and, on a trade estate, a run of similar roofs side by side. As an indicative orientation only, units in this sector tend to land around 50–250 kWp per unit, often across multi-let estates, though that band is a starting point and nothing more. The real figure comes from the on-site drone survey and the PV*SOL model for your exact roof, sized to the load you actually carry. Where an estate holds several comparable units, the same approach can be rolled across the run rather than designed from scratch each time. Industrial units sit alongside our other commercial sectors; heavier single-occupier loads sit closer to manufacturing or warehousing and logistics, and multi-let estates overlap our office and landlord case.

Not every unit on an estate self-consumes the same. A single-shift fabricator, or a unit that runs hard only in the afternoon, exports more than a continuously occupied workshop, so the daytime match is rarely uniform across a run of similar-looking sheds. The shape of your electricity bill tells us most of this before we set foot on site: the standing-charge and capacity components, the day and night unit splits, and on a half-hourly meter the demand peaks themselves. Where the daytime match is thinner, we model whether battery storage shifts midday generation into a later shift or the evening rather than spilling it cheaply to the grid, and whether it trims the maximum-demand and capacity charges that sit on many industrial supplies. On a let estate the export tariff and the metering arrangement both feed into that calculation, and we set out the split plainly before anything is specified.

The spend is weighed as a capital project. For the operator or the landlord, a roof array is assessed like any other fixed-asset investment, so the relevant capital allowances and the finance route belong in the proposal rather than as an afterthought. Whether the array is bought outright, funded against the asset, or taken on a power purchase arrangement changes who carries the cost and who keeps the saving, which matters most on multi-let stock where landlord and tenant interests differ and a rent review or service-charge structure can sit in the way. We set those options against your own position; the comparison is laid out across our commercial finance pages, with the capital allowances treatment in particular. Any payback or return figure is modelled for your own site and disclosed on that basis, with the underlying assumptions shown, never quoted as a flat sector number.

Over 50 kWp, the assurance comes from the engineering stack. MCS is the certification scheme for homes and small systems; it does not apply at industrial-unit scale, so a commercial array is designed and signed off against the standards that do. The design is built to BS 7671, the array is commissioned and tested to IEC 62446-1, the grid connection runs under a G99 agreement, and the works are managed under CDM 2015 as a construction project with named duty-holders. Insurer requirements bear on the specification too: many commercial property policies look to the RC62 guidance on roof-mounted PV, which shapes choices like fire-rated cabling routes, DC isolation and the array layout around fire breaks. Earthing and surge protection are part of that stack too, which matters on a large metal-roof array exposed across an open estate. The structural check sits ahead of all of it, confirming the roof can carry the array before any layout is fixed, which on older mill and post-war stock is the most common reason a design changes.

The unit itself sets practical limits the survey reads first. Industrial roofs are rarely clean rectangles: rooflights, smoke vents, extraction stacks, plant decks and parapet shading all eat into the usable run, and on a converted or extended unit the pitches and coverings can change halfway across. The drone survey captures those in 3D so the layout works around them rather than colliding with them on the day, and it flags fragile or asbestos-cement sheets before anyone walks the roof. Inside the unit, the inverters and any battery need a position with the right clearance and ventilation, which is straightforward in most sheds but tighter in a small trade unit. None of this stops a project, but it is why a single roof estimate is never the same as a designed system.

The grid position usually sets the programme. Across Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire the distribution network operator is Northern Powergrid, and the G99 connection agreement is normally the longest pole in the timeline, so we apply for it early and design around the terms it returns. The connection headroom at your point of supply can cap the export the network will accept, which on a large array is another reason the design is sized to your own consumption rather than to the full roof area. On a large connection the network can require a study or a contribution towards reinforcement, and that outcome is one of the few things outside our control, which is exactly why it is the first application we lodge. Where an estate runs several supplies, each unit can sit on its own MPAN with its own connection position, so what is straightforward on one unit may need a separate application on the next, and we set that out before any programme is promised.

On a multi-let estate the works are sequenced around occupancy. A live tenant is not taken off supply mid-fit, so the run is planned unit by unit, often around quieter periods or void units first, and the metering for each is confirmed so the generation lands on the right meter from day one. Once the array is commissioned, the same discipline carries into operations and maintenance, with monitoring set up so a drop in output is caught and corrected rather than left to surface on a bill months later. That matters more across an estate than on a single building, because a fault on one roof in a run of ten is easy to miss without it.