Solar panels for fabrication, FAQs

A typical fabrication solar installation ranges from around £30,000 for a small welding or engineering unit to over £320,000 for a large laser-profiling or powder-coating plant, depending on system size. Cost per kWp is usually £700 to £810 for smaller systems, falling to roughly £520 to £700 above 250 kWp. Most SME installs are fully expensed in year one under the Annual Investment Allowance, and paybacks typically land between three and seven years thanks to high daytime self-consumption.

Because metal fabrication is overwhelmingly a single-shift, Monday-to-Friday, daytime operation, its electrical demand lands almost exactly on the solar generation curve. That means 70 to 90 percent of everything the array generates is used on site at your full 25 to 30p import rate rather than exported cheaply at 12 to 16p. High self-consumption is what drives short paybacks, and a fabrication shop has it built in, unlike a home that sits empty during the day or a 24/7 plant that exports more of its midday output.

System size should match your daytime load, not your roof area. We pull 12 months of half-hourly meter data and size the array to cover roughly 70 to 90 percent of daytime consumption, anchored on the steady loads that run all day, your compressor, LEV extraction, laser chiller and CNC coolant. For UK fabrication that is typically 60 to 500 kWp: around 20 to 50 kWp for a small jobbing unit, 75 to 150 kWp for a mid-size sheet-metal and CNC shop, and 250 to 500 kWp-plus for a structural-steel, laser or powder-coating plant.

Yes. Welders, plasma cutters and fibre lasers are high-power, intermittent loads, but they sit on top of a large, near-constant daytime baseload from your compressor, LEV extraction, laser chiller and CNC auxiliaries. Solar feeds that steady baseload smoothly, and the spiky process peaks soak up the midday generation. Where demand charges or kVA peaks are heavy, we model a battery alongside the array to shave them. Everything is sized from your actual half-hourly data.

It has to be designed in. HSE rules (Safety Bulletin STSU1-2019) require Local Exhaust Ventilation for all indoor welding, because all welding fume including mild steel is now classed as a carcinogen, and that extraction ductwork and its discharge stacks penetrate and vent through the same roof as the array. We plan the panel layout, cable routing and maintenance walkways around your existing and future extraction penetrations so the PV never blocks a legally-required fume route, and the extraction load itself becomes an obligatory daytime load the solar offsets.

Yes. Where you own the unit it is straightforward. Where you lease, we work with landlord consent or a green-lease addendum, or fund the array through a Power Purchase Agreement where a funder owns the system and you buy the power below grid for the life of your lease with no capital outlay. If your remaining term is short we size a smaller, faster-payback system or use a PPA so you are never out of pocket. We will be honest if the tenure does not suit solar.

Usually no. Rooftop PV on industrial buildings in England is normally Permitted Development under Class A Part 14 of the GPDO 2015, and the previous 1 MW cap was removed in December 2023, so even large arrays can be Permitted Development. Panels must not project more than 200 mm above a sloping roof, or 600 mm above a flat roof, and must not exceed the highest part of the roof. Listed buildings, conservation areas and Article 4 areas are exceptions. We confirm the planning status as part of the feasibility study.

We check the roof first. Any building from before 2000 needs an asbestos management survey before we fix anything, and asbestos-cement roofs, common on older fabrication sheds, cannot take rooftop PV directly. Where we find one, the usual route is to over-clad or re-roof, which can often be funded inside the same project. A portal-frame roof is also surveyed by a structural engineer, because a framed array adds around 15 to 25 kg/m2 plus wind uplift, and any crane-rail loads are deducted from the residual capacity first.

Self-consumed solar replaces grid electricity at your full import rate, currently around 25 to 30p/kWh for commercial users, while any surplus earns 12 to 16p/kWh under the Smart Export Guarantee. For a 150 kWp fabrication install, expect £25,000 to £40,000 of annual bill reduction plus modest export income, with 70 to 90 percent of generation used on site. Your bill also becomes more predictable, because a growing share of your electricity is generated at a fixed lifetime cost rather than exposed to wholesale spikes.

The main relief is capital allowances: the Annual Investment Allowance gives 100 percent year-one tax relief on the first £1m of qualifying spend, which covers most SME installs, worth up to about 25 percent of the cost for a profitable company. On-site solar and battery are also exempt from business rates in England to 2035, and the Smart Export Guarantee pays for exported power. Note that solar is special-rate plant, so it does not qualify for full expensing, and the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund is now closed. We map the right combination and always point you to current HMRC guidance rather than fixed figures.

Not for most single-shift fabrication shops, where daytime self-consumption is already high and the PV pays back well on its own. A battery becomes worthwhile where you run any evening or weekend shifts, where a powder-coat oven or compressor warm-up can be shifted onto stored midday surplus, or where kVA demand and DUoS red-band charges are heavy. We model the battery business case alongside the PV so you can see whether it pays for your site.

From contract to commissioning, expect three to six months for most fabrication shops. The longest single item is the G99 grid connection, where the DNO can take 45 working days for a standard connection or 16 to 24 weeks for a larger array needing a network study. Physical installation is usually one to four weeks on site. We submit the DNO application alongside the structural survey so the connection clock starts on day one, which compresses the overall timeline.

Rooftop installs almost never require a shutdown of your fabrication work. The only mandatory outage is the final grid connection, typically four to eight hours, which we schedule for a weekend, evening or planned maintenance window. Scaffolding and roof work happen above and around your normal operation, and we coordinate around crane movements, extraction runs and any hot-work areas so welding and cutting can continue safely below.

Increasingly, yes. Automotive, rail, construction-steel and offshore customers now write net-zero, Scope 2 and Scope 3, BES 6001 responsibly-sourced-steel and CBAM requirements into their pre-qualification questionnaires and supplier scorecards. A fabricator with an on-site renewable line item scores better at tender and protects preferred-supplier status, and the generation data feeds straight into the disclosures your customers ask for. On-site solar is one of the most visible and verifiable ways to evidence a Scope 2 reduction.

Through asset finance or a Power Purchase Agreement. Asset finance spreads the cost over five to seven years and is usually cash-flow positive from month one, because the finance payment is smaller than the bill it replaces, and you own the asset. A PPA needs no capital at all: a funder owns the array and you buy the power at a fixed rate below grid, which suits tenants and shorter leases. If you buy outright, the Annual Investment Allowance gives 100 percent year-one tax relief up to £1m. We model all three against a cash purchase so you can compare like for like.

Almost all industrial roof types: trapezoidal and profiled metal (clip or rail fix), standing-seam metal (clamp fix, no penetration), single-ply membrane (ballasted), and built-up felt (mechanically fixed). The main exception is asbestos-cement, which cannot be retrofitted with rooftop PV and must be over-clad or replaced first. On heavy structural-steel shops we also check that crane-rail and gantry loads leave enough residual roof capacity for the array.

Panels are warranted for 25 years, typically at 84 percent output at year 25, inverters for 5 to 12 years and replaced once during the system life, and mounting and DC cabling for 25 years. Real-world life is 30 to 35 years with one inverter change. Maintenance is light: an annual operations-and-maintenance visit for electrical inspection and cleaning, plus 24/7 remote monitoring, typically £8 to £12 per kWp per year. Insurers increasingly expect RC62-compliant design and annual inspection as a condition of cover.