Commercial Solar · County Durham
Commercial solar in Consett, 900 feet up
Consett made steel for roughly 140 years. When the works closed in 1980, around 3,500 jobs went with it — and the town has spent the four decades since building a different economy, much of it literally on the steelworks’ own land. That history hands Consett something no other County Durham town has: an industrial building stock almost entirely younger than 1980. For a solar installer that matters more than sentiment — newer portal frames, newer profiled-sheet roofs, fewer of the fixings-fatigue surprises a 1960s estate carries.
Our base at St Helen Auckland, by Bishop Auckland, is around 19 road-miles south up the A68 — a survey here is a scheduled morning, a warranty visit a local drive.
The other thing to know is the altitude: at around 900 feet, Consett is among the highest towns in England, and an array here is designed accordingly — wind first, sunshine second.
Solar on Consett's commercial buildings
Number One Industrial Estate on Medomsley Road is the emblem of the rebuild — the 1980s estate where Derwent Valley Foods set up in 1982 and made Phileas Fogg snacks briefly famous nationwide, the adverts signed off "Made in Medomsley Road, Consett", growing past 250 jobs before United Biscuits bought the firm in 1993. The estate is still working stock, and its era is the point: 1980s-and-after units, steel portal frames under profiled sheet — the construction clamp-mounted solar is designed for.
The rebuild is not finished. Project Genesis — the regeneration venture formally constituted in 1994 — has levered more than £250 million into the former steelworks site, and its Hownsgill Industrial Park is a designated strategic employment site — Bessemer Court’s second phase added four workshop units (6,500 sq ft) in June 2024, backed by £448,000 of Getting Building Fund money. New-build is the cheapest moment to design solar in; if you are taking space at Hownsgill, have that conversation before the fit-out.
The town still manufactures at a serious level, too: Thomas Swan & Co has run its Crookhall Works since 1926 — around 140 people making advanced materials, graphene among them, for customers in more than 80 countries. Process manufacturing runs flat, continuous daytime loads, the profile solar serves best. A 50 kWp array — a sensible fit for a larger Number One or Hownsgill unit — returns roughly 40,000–47,500 kWh a year at North East yields, the bottom of the band on a shallow-pitch sheet roof; a business consuming most of that on site is replacing bought electricity at full import price.
Now the altitude, honestly. Height does not meaningfully change the solar resource — the 800–950 kWh/kWp band already reflects local climate, and cool, breezy air is mildly good for output, since panel efficiency drops as cells heat. What altitude changes is wind load. An exposed Consett roof is designed to the wind-actions standard: heavier clamp densities in edge and corner zones, mounting checked against uplift, a fixings specification we will happily show you. If a previous quote never mentioned wind zones, ask why. And if the building needs distribution-board or supply work before an inverter goes in, the same firm handles it.
What Durham County Council is doing
Durham County Council is the planning and rates authority — it absorbed Derwentside District Council, Consett’s old authority, when the county went unitary in 2009. Unusually, Project Genesis began as the district council’s own joint venture, and its charitable trust still reinvests development proceeds in the town.
The county’s net-zero-by-2045 commitment points the way the estates are already travelling — a town that rebuilt its economy once is not sentimental about how its buildings are powered. Most rooftop arrays here proceed under permitted development; where a larger system needs prior approval, we prepare it.
Local facts, sourced
Consett in numbers
Every figure below comes from a named public source — the same standard we hold our savings estimates to.
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Consett's steelworks closed in 1980 with around 3,500 jobs — and Project Genesis, formed in 1994, has since levered more than £250 million of investment into the former steelworks site.
Source: The Genesis Project — project-genesis.org.uk/history
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Number One Industrial Estate was where Derwent Valley Foods built the Phileas Fogg snack brand from 1982 — "Made in Medomsley Road, Consett" — employing over 250 people by its 1993 sale to United Biscuits.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phileas_Fogg_snacks; gracesguide.co.uk/Derwent_Valley_Foods
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Thomas Swan & Co has manufactured at Crookhall Works since 1926, making advanced materials including graphene for customers in more than 80 countries with a team of around 140.
Source: thomas-swan.co.uk/about-us/history
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At around 900 feet above sea level, Consett is among the highest towns in England — so our arrays here are engineered to the Eurocode wind-actions standard, with clamp densities uprated in roof edge and corner zones.
Source: Consett Magazine — consettmagazine.com (elevation); BS EN 1991-1-4 (design standard)
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Hownsgill Industrial Park's Bessemer Court added four new workshop units (6,500 sq ft) in June 2024, backed by £448,000 from the Getting Building Fund — Consett's employment land is still growing.
Source: Bdaily 13-02-2024; project-genesis.org.uk/developments
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Consett's built-up area grew from 28,165 to 29,885 people between the 2011 and 2021 censuses — a rebuilt town still adding people.
Source: ONS Census 2021 — via citypopulation.de (E63000161)
Data last reviewed: July 2026
Our work across the North East
The next step
The town that made steel should not be renting all its power. Check the assumptions we calculate with, start from the wider County Durham picture, or ask us to survey your roof.
Consett commercial solar questions
Consett is high and exposed — will panels actually stay on the roof?
Yes, when the design respects the site. Wind is strongest at roof edges and corners, so an exposed installation gets more clamps where the uplift is, and fixings matched to the sheet profile and purlins found at survey — not assumed from a desktop. An installer who quotes Consett the same as a sheltered valley site is the one to worry about.
Do we lose solar output at 900 feet?
Not meaningfully. The 800–950 kWh/kWp band we plan with comes from location-specific climate data, so Consett’s weather is already in the numbers — and cooler, breezier air even works slightly in your favour, since panels lose efficiency as they heat. Orientation, pitch and shading move the result far more than altitude ever will.
We're a food or drink manufacturer — can you install around production?
That is normal for us. Installation is phased around your production calendar and hygiene regime: roof work sequenced away from open-production windows, nothing drilled through a live production ceiling unannounced. Food-grade sites also tend to run refrigeration — a flat daytime-and-beyond load that suits self-consumed solar unusually well.
Could we ground-mount on spare land instead — Consett has plenty of cleared industrial land?
Sometimes, but tread carefully. Much of Consett’s cleared land is remediated steelworks ground, and a ground-mounted array needs it investigated — made ground, remediation history, anything you must not pierce — before anyone drives a post. Ground-mount also usually needs planning permission where rooftop does not; a sound roof is nearly always the faster, cheaper site.
Nearby
We also cover solar for Chester-le-Street businesses, Peterlee commercial solar installers and commercial solar in Barnard Castle.
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