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Commercial solar by sector

Commercial solar for offices & landlords.

An office runs its heaviest load through the working day, exactly when the roof is generating, so a well-matched array self-consumes most of what it makes rather than exporting it cheaply.

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  • Improves the EPC and MEES position of let commercial property and answers tenant pressure for lower-carbon space. Suits landlords and owner-occupiers alike.
  • Sized from your half-hourly load
  • Over 50 kWp, outside MCS
At a glance
  • 50–250 kWp Indicative size

Offices and let commercial property cover a broad estate: single-occupier head offices, multi-let business parks, serviced buildings and the landlords who own them. What ties them together is a demand shape that is concentrated on weekday daytime, lighting, ventilation, comfort cooling, server and IT load, lifts and small power, the same hours a rooftop array is at its most productive.

That overlap is the reason commercial solar is worth modelling here. For an owner-occupier the generation offsets an expensive import bill across the working week. For a landlord the array is also a building asset: it improves the EPC and answers a real and growing question from tenants about the carbon of the space they take. Both cases turn on getting the self-consumption right, and that is a design decision, not a roof-area sum.

Commercial rooftop solar, the kind specified for offices & landlords

Sized from your half-hourly load, not a sector average.

01 Why it fits

What makes solar work for offices & landlords.

Solar earns most when the power is used on site. A unit consumed in the building offsets an expensive import unit, while a unit exported to the grid is paid far less. An office load lines up with daylight unusually well: the demand ramps up as people arrive, holds through the working day, and tails off in the evening, which is the same curve a south-facing or east-west array tends to follow. Where comfort cooling and server rooms carry the load, the summer demand peak sits right on top of the summer generation peak. That tends to give a strong daytime match and a high self-consumed share through the working week.

The honest counterweight is the calendar. Offices empty at weekends and over the holiday weeks, so generation on those days is more likely to be exported. We do not paper over that. We model the real weekly and seasonal shape from your half-hourly data and size the array to the demand you actually carry, rather than overbuilding a roof that would export cheaply on a quiet Saturday. For a let building there is a further wrinkle worth naming early: who is metered for what. The landlord-tenant metering split decides how the benefit of the generation is shared between the freeholder and the occupiers, and the design and the commercial structure have to account for it from the start. We work that out with you before anything is specified.

02 Typical system

What a typical system looks like.

Office and let-property roofs vary more than an industrial shed. They run from a single flat roof on a head office to the mix of pitched and flat roofs across a business park, often with plant, rooflights and parapet shading to design around. For orientation only, offices and let buildings in this sector tend to sit in an indicative band of 50–250 kWp, though that is a starting reference rather than a quote. The real figure comes from the on-site survey and the PV*SOL model of your specific roof and load. A multi-let estate may also point toward sizing across several buildings rather than maximising any one roof, so the array tracks the demand across the portfolio. The survey-to-design sequence is the same whether the array sits on one head-office roof or across a business park.

Who is metered for what

The metering arrangement decides who gets the benefit

One account

A single landlord supply

The building draws through one supply the landlord holds, with utilities recharged or rolled into the rent. Generation offsets the building's import directly, so the benefit lands on the landlord's bill.

  • The simplest case to model, because one meter carries the whole load
  • The array can be sized to the building's full half-hourly demand
  • How the saving is passed on is a service-charge question rather than a metering one
Separate accounts

Separately metered tenancies

Each occupier holds its own supply and its own contract. Generation on the landlord's meter cannot reach a tenant's load without a sub-metered or private-wire arrangement and a commercial structure agreed up front.

  • The landlord-metered load is often far smaller than the building's total
  • Sizing to the whole building would export most of what it makes
  • Any pass-through to occupiers has to be agreed before the design is fixed
A mix

Landlord common parts, tenant demised areas

The most common arrangement on a multi-let building. Lifts, corridor and external lighting, ventilation and plant sit on the landlord supply while the demised space does not.

  • The common-parts base load runs long hours and self-consumes steadily
  • Sizing usually leads with that base load rather than the roof's physical maximum
  • A recharge or sub-metered route can extend the benefit, and it is a commercial decision

No two let buildings share the same metering map, and a single-account assumption overstates the self-consumed share. We map the supply and metering arrangement at survey stage so the benefit case is built on how the building is genuinely occupied and billed.

FAQ

Commercial solar for offices & landlords: common questions

That depends on the metering, and it is the first thing we work out. For a single landlord supply the generation offsets the building's import directly. Where tenants are metered separately the landlord-tenant split decides how the benefit is shared, through landlord supply to common areas, a sub-metered arrangement, or a commercial structure agreed up front. We model your specific setup and design around it rather than assuming a single occupier.
For let commercial property it tends to help on both. On-site generation reduces the building's modelled energy use, which improves the EPC rating and strengthens the MEES position for a building you intend to keep letting. It also answers a question more tenants are asking about the carbon of the space they take. We can point you to our MEES and EPC guidance alongside the survey so the energy case and the compliance case line up.
Often, yes, but it is exactly the kind of thing we test rather than assume. Weekday daytime load self-consumes well, while weekend and holiday generation is more likely to be exported and paid less. We model the real weekly and seasonal pattern from your half-hourly data and size the array to the demand you carry. Where the off-peak export is significant we will tell you straight, and we look at whether battery storage or a portfolio approach across buildings improves the match.
There is no fixed answer from a page. Offices and let buildings in this sector sit in an indicative band of roughly 50 to 250 kWp, but that is for orientation only and carries no price. Your real system size comes from the drone survey and the PV*SOL model, sized to your actual half-hourly load and the usable area once plant and shading are accounted for.
We do not quote from a page, because the cost depends on the roof, the usable area once plant and shading are accounted for, the metering arrangement and the system size your half-hourly load supports. The drone survey and the PV*SOL model are the basis for the figure, and the survey is free. We set out the cost openly once we have modelled your specific building rather than offering a headline number that would not hold.
It varies with the size of the array and the grid position, and we give you a realistic programme at survey rather than a fixed promise here. The early stages are the survey and the PV*SOL model, then the design and a G99 connection agreed with the network, which is often the longest lead time and sits partly outside our control. Installation itself is usually the shorter part. For a let building we also fit the works around tenant occupation, and we plan the sequence with you before anything starts on site.
Get a commercial quote

See what your roof and your load would actually do.

We model your half-hourly consumption against a system sized from an on-site drone survey, so the figure you get is yours, not a from-price. No obligation, no MCS gatekeeping on systems this size.

  • On-site 3D drone survey, fully insured in-house pilot
  • Half-hourly load modelled in PV*SOL before anything is specified
  • Engineer-led, assured to the non-MCS standard (CDM 2015)