Farms & agriculture
A steel portal-frame shed is close to the ideal solar host — large, unshaded and simple. We size to the load (dairy, refrigeration, poultry, grain drying), not just the roof.
Commercial · Agricultural · Public sector · Homes
Commercial & agricultural solar PV in the North East
Quick answer
Solar PV in the North East, for homes and businesses:
- Commercial rooftop solar installs for roughly £700–£1,100 per kWp in 2026 — scale moves you through that band.
- A well-oriented North East roof generates around 850 kWh per kWp a year, the mid-band figure our modelling uses.
- Allow roughly 6 m² of pitched roof (8–10 m² if it is flat) per kWp when sizing a system.
- Most rooftop solar is permitted development — no planning application for a typical system.
- A commercial array is exempt from business rates until 31 March 2035.
- MCS-certified installs by electrical contractors with 30 years on the tools — free surveys for homes and businesses.
Figures: European Commission PVGIS (modelled for Durham) and 2026 installed-cost bands.
For your business
Where solar pays hardest
This is where solar pays hardest. A building that uses its electricity in the daytime — a warehouse, a factory, a dairy — is using it exactly when the panels make it, and that self-consumption is what drives the return. Commercial rooftop systems install for roughly £700–£1,100 per kWp in 2026, most need no planning application, and the array is exempt from business rates until 31 March 2035.
We quote fixed and itemised from a survey — purlin condition, fixing type, remaining roof life and metering answered before the price, not after.
- Daytime self-use The strongest returns are on roofs whose building uses power while the sun is up.
- Sheet roofs a speciality Clamp-mounted arrays on box-profile and standing-seam roofs — fast, no wet trade.
- Fixed, itemised quotes Priced from a survey, so a suspiciously low per-kWp figure has a line missing.
For your home
The same trade, sized for a house
The same team that wires warehouses fits solar on houses, and the logic is identical — just smaller. We are MCS-certified and NICEIC-registered, so the paperwork is done properly and your system qualifies for the Smart Export Guarantee. A typical pitched roof needs roughly six square metres per kWp, and a well-oriented North East roof generates around 850 kWh per kWp a year — the same mid-band figure we plan commercial systems around.
We size for the electricity you actually use in the daytime and early evening first, because a unit you use is worth far more than one you export — and we say plainly when a battery does or does not earn its place. The survey is free, and there is no pushy sales script at the end of it.
- MCS-certified installation NICEIC and RECC-registered — your system qualifies for the Smart Export Guarantee.
- A free home survey We look at your roof, orientation and usage before quoting anything.
- Sized to your roof and your bills Roughly 6 m² per kWp; designed around the power you use, not the roof’s maximum.
Who we build for
Where a roof earns its keep
The same install, sized to very different buildings — here is where commercial and agricultural solar does its best work.
Warehouses & factories
The strongest economics we see: the building uses its power in the daytime, when the panels make it. Sheet-metal and trapezoidal roofs take clamp-mounted arrays fast.
Offices & public sector
Flat roofs take ballasted arrays sized to the load capacity; procurement teams get the same itemised, fixed-price quote as everyone else.
Grade II listed
In scope and genuinely so — but slower, consent-led and designed for concealment before yield. We say that at the first conversation, not after a refusal.
Plan around these
What a system costs, and what it makes
A 100 kWp array — the size a mid-sized warehouse roof carries comfortably — lands somewhere around £80,000 at the mid-band, before the tax treatment. Business premises are standard-rated for VAT, recoverable in the normal way; homes are zero-rated.
£700–£1,100
Installed cost
per kWp · scale moves you through the band
~850 kWh
Annual yield
per kWp · well-oriented NE roof (mid-band)
~6 m²
Roof area
per kWp pitched · 8–10 m² if flat
The mounting is where it is won or lost
The roof decides more than the brochure
Panel brochures are interchangeable. Roofs are not, and the mounting engineering is where a commercial install is won or lost. What the building offers decides the method — and, on one material, whether we will build at all.
- Trapezoidal / box-profile sheet Brackets through the profile crown into the purlins with sealed fixings — quick, proven, the bulk of the North East’s industrial roof stock.
- Standing seam Clamps grip the seam itself, so there is often no roof penetration at all — the best mounting scenario there is.
- Flat membrane Ballasted frames, no fixings through the waterproofing, with wind-load calculations setting the ballast and layout.
- Slate and tile Hook-mounted, slower and costlier per panel — workable on offices and listed conversions.
- Asbestos cement We do not drill it, full stop. Strip and re-sheet first, use a different roof, or go ground-mounted — anyone fixing panels straight through it is selling you a problem.
PVGIS · run for Durham
What a North East roof actually generates
Most solar calculators quote a national average. We ran the European Commission’s PVGIS model for a Durham location instead, at 14% system losses, per kWp installed. 800–950 kWh is the honest planning band for a well-oriented roof, and our modelling uses 850 as its central, deliberately mid-band figure.
~937 kWh
35° south-facing pitch
per kWp per year
~841 kWh
10° south-facing (a typical sheet roof)
per kWp per year
~770 kWh
10° facing east or west
per kWp per year
Payback, with the working shown
“Five to eight years” is the payback planning band, so here is where it comes from rather than a bare claim. Take a 100 kWp warehouse array at £80,000:
- 100 kWp × 850 kWh/kWp = 85,000 kWh a year of generation.
- A daytime-heavy business typically uses around 70% of that on site: 59,500 kWh no longer bought from the grid. At the 17p/kWh that manufacturing businesses averaged through 2025, that is about £10,100 a year kept.
- The rest exports. At a deliberately cautious 5p/kWh assumption — check the export rate you are actually offered, as at July 2026 they vary widely by supplier — that is about £1,275 a year more.
- Year-one benefit ≈ £11,400, so simple payback lands around seven years.
Now the honest sensitivities. A continuous operation — cold storage, shift manufacturing — pushing self-use to 85% brings that toward six years; a site using only half its generation stretches toward nine, which is when a battery, or simply a smaller array, is the better answer and the one we will recommend. And the tax treatment moves the whole picture: claimed under the Annual Investment Allowance, the full £80,000 can be deducted from taxable profits in year one — up to £20,000 off the year’s bill at the 25% main rate of corporation tax — which takes the effective payback in this example to a little over five years. That is why five to eight years is the band we plan around for a daytime-heavy business, and why we would still rather model yours from your own consumption data than hand you an average.
Two audiences, one installer
Home vs business: how solar differs
The panels are the same. What changes between a house and a commercial building is the tax, the rates and the grid paperwork.
| For your home | For your business | |
|---|---|---|
| VAT on the installation | Zero-rated | Standard-rated — recoverable as input tax if VAT-registered |
| Business rates | Not applicable | Exempt to 31 March 2035 |
| Planning | Usually permitted development | Usually permitted development; prior approval above 50 kW |
| Grid connection | Usually a G98 notification | Usually a G99 application, agreed before export |
| Tax relief | — | AIA or 50% special-rate first-year allowance |
| Certification | MCS-certified install | MCS-certified install |
For your home
- VAT on the installation
- Zero-rated
- Business rates
- Not applicable
- Planning
- Usually permitted development
- Grid connection
- Usually a G98 notification
- Tax relief
- —
- Certification
- MCS-certified install
For your business
- VAT on the installation
- Standard-rated — recoverable as input tax if VAT-registered
- Business rates
- Exempt to 31 March 2035
- Planning
- Usually permitted development; prior approval above 50 kW
- Grid connection
- Usually a G99 application, agreed before export
- Tax relief
- AIA or 50% special-rate first-year allowance
- Certification
- MCS-certified install
Read the small print with you
Three rules that move the numbers
Business rates
Eligible onsite renewable generation and storage — rooftop solar included — is 100% exempt from business rates in England to 31 March 2035, applied automatically by the Valuation Office Agency. No form, nothing to claim.
Capital allowances
Solar is special-rate plant, so the common “100% full expensing” claim is wrong. What is available is the 50% special-rate first-year allowance, or often the Annual Investment Allowance at 100% up to £1m. Confirm with your accountant — we give them the figures.
Export
The Smart Export Guarantee obliges larger suppliers to offer export tariffs up to 5 MW. But a unit used on site is worth your full import rate and an exported unit a fraction of it — so we size for self-consumption first.
Our own work
Recent installs across the North East
Real project photography from our own jobs — sheet roofs, roofscapes and warehouse arrays, no stock imagery.
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Completed commercial installation, North East -
Completed commercial installation, North East -
Completed commercial installation, North East -
On site — a completed roof -
Inverters and switchgear — wired in-house -
Completed commercial installation, North East -
Completed commercial installation, North East -
Completed installation, North East -
Completed commercial installation, North East
Start to finish
How your install runs
The same four stages for a farm shed or a factory roof — the grid application is the long pole, so it goes in first.
- Step 1
Free survey
We look at the roof, the load and the meter — purlin condition, fixing type, remaining roof life and orientation — before quoting a thing.
- Step 2
Design & grid application
Fixed, itemised design, with the G99 connection application to Northern Powergrid submitted early because it often takes longer than the install itself.
- Step 3
Installation
Clamp-mounted arrays on sheet and standing-seam roofs — fast, no wet trade — wired and protected by the electrical contractor in-house.
- Step 4
Commission & certify
Tested, commissioned and signed off with the G99 paperwork and electrical certification complete at handover.
In-house, start to finish
Planning, the grid and the kit — handled
We fit tier-1 monocrystalline panels in commercial formats — brand-agnostic on this page for now — with performance warranties commonly past 25 years. Inverters are Sigenergy and SMA, mid-market platforms chosen because a 25-year asset needs a manufacturer likely to still exist in year 15; plan to replace the inverter at 10–12 years. Batteries are Fox ESS, sized where storage earns its place — the full case is on the battery storage page.
Under all of it, solar PV is electrical contracting on a roof — the trade this firm has practised for more than 30 years. So if the distribution board needs upgrading before the array goes in, that is one phone call, not a second contractor.
- Permitted development Most commercial rooftop solar needs no planning application; systems over 50 kW use a lighter prior-approval process.
- G99, submitted first The grid application to Northern Powergrid often takes longer than the install, so it is the first thing we send.
- Export-limited where needed A constrained network is not a dead end — a G100 export-limitation design protects on-site use, where the value sits.
- 30 years, in-house DC, protection, metering and certification by the electrical contractor — not subcontracted.
Commercial solar questions, answered here
How much roof area does a 100 kWp system need?
On a pitched sheet roof, plan around 500–600 m² — roughly 5–6 m² per kWp once access routes and rooflights are worked around. Ballasted flat-roof arrays need more, typically 8–10 m² per kWp, because rows are spaced to stop them shading each other. A useful mental shortcut: if your building’s footprint is a quarter of an acre or more, a three-figure kWp system almost certainly fits.
Can you install solar on an asbestos cement roof?
Not onto it, no — we do not drill or fix into asbestos sheet under any circumstances. The workable routes are stripping and re-sheeting the roof first (often the right moment, since a new steel sheet roof and a solar array have similar working lives), using a different building on the site, or a ground-mounted array. It is a more expensive answer than the one some installers give. It is also the correct one.
Will the installation stop production?
Mostly, no. The roof work happens above your operations with the building live, and we plan deliveries and crane lifts around your site rather than through it. The one genuine interruption is the final connection and commissioning — a planned shutdown, usually measured in hours, scheduled for whenever hurts least, including weekends.
How long does the whole project take?
The on-roof work for a 100 kWp system is typically one to two weeks. The programme, though, is set by the G99 application and any consents — a realistic go-ahead-to-switch-on span is two to four months on an unconstrained network, longer where the network needs reinforcement or a listed building needs consent. We give you the honest programme at quote stage, because "we can start next week" is only ever true of the scaffolding.
We lease the building — is solar still possible?
Yes, but the landlord has to be in the room. On a short remaining lease the capital case rarely works for the tenant alone, and we will say so rather than sell around it. Owner-occupiers are the simple case; landlord-tenant sites need an agreement on who pays and who benefits, and we are happy to talk to both sides with the same numbers on the table.
Get a straight answer on your roof. Send us the building, the bill and the roof type — or put your own numbers through the commercial savings calculator first, no contact details needed.
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