An often overlooked metric when reducing business costs is electricity costs. Investing in savings on your electricity bills, as well as renewable energy and technology, provides several benefits for your business and is suitable for commercial businesses across all sectors. Investing in saving electricity, as well as generating your own clean electricity, slashes energy costs. Using annual investment allowance and other capital allowances, you can also leverage costs, and with different funding options available, now is the best time to invest in solar to make savings and drive revenue for your business.
| Solution | Savings & Revenue Driver | Allowances, Tax & Grants |
| Commercial Solar PV | Energy Independence: Slash daytime electricity bills by generating power on-site, protecting against UK grid price volatility. This effectively fixes your energy bills until you make a full return on your investment, then generates free electricity for the building. Commercial properties often have large amounts of unused roofspace available for solar electricity generation. | 100% Annual Investment Allowance (AIA): Deduct the full cost of the installation from your taxable profits in year one (up to £1m). |
| Solar Carports | Dual-Purpose Installations: Turns unused parking space that hasn’t been upgraded with solar into a generator of electricity. Also prevents Business Rates increases on your building for 10 years (until 2035). | Capital Allowances: Qualifies for either the AIA or the 50% First-Year Allowance (FYA) for larger projects exceeding £1m. |
| EV Charging Points | Attract & Retain: Providing charging can be a free perk for staff or a monetised service for visitors/customers. You can choose whether you want to generate additional revenue or provide this as a perk. Whilst also generating electricity with solar carport installations. | Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS): Get up to £350 per socket (max 40 sockets) in government grants. Note: Current scheme ends 31 March 2026. |
Slash your electricity bills and invest in your commercial property today with commercial solar panels. We will work with you to design a system that suits your needs and is designed to generate clean electricity. This improves your green credentials, whilst saving you money on energy bills and increasing the value of your commercial property. After your system has paid back on your investment, you are effectively generating free electricity for your commercial property. Get in touch with our commercial solar panel team to discuss your requirements.
Why is Electricity Overlooked as a Cost and an Asset?
Electricity is often overlooked as either a cost or an asset or both. This is usually because electricity bills are seen as “fixed costs”, rather than something that can be controlled and taken advantage of in terms of reducing costs and generating revenue. This can also be seen the other way around, with inefficiency in current electricity usage being overlooked, where electricity isn’t being monitored for efficiency. Overvoltage can also be a key issue, as well as a lack of technical investment. These are all major reasons as to why electricity may be being overlooked at your business premises, so creating a strategy is a great way to reduce costs. A big benefit is that you can see significant savings instantly, with investment in solar being another core area where you can see savings through investment in technology.
Taking Advantage of Unused Roofspace
Commercial buildings have a large amount of roofspace available, especially warehouses and other large facilities, which also tend to have flat roof space, which is perfectly suited for solar panel installation. This roofspace isn’t doing anything when they don’t have anything installed on the roof, so this is a great opportunity to install solar panels to generate your own clean and cheaper electricity. This is a large and untapped asset that you can turn into revenue from your roof. You are increasing the overall value of the property, and then enjoying reduced and fixed energy prices until you have made a return on your investment.
What is Overvoltage and How Does This Cost Money?
Overvoltage is often overlooked, and the costs of overvoltage can stack up for commercial properties due to your business’s extensive operations. Surges or spikes in power, such as with the activation of a large amount of electronics or lights, cause temporary overvoltage, whereas other issues can cause permanent overvoltage due to grid issues or faults. Over time, this can cause the breakdown of insulation, premature ageing of electronics, and destruction of sensitive electronics. When overvoltage occurs, more power is used than is needed, and heat is generated. At worst, it can be dangerous, but it’s also a large cause of electricity wastage that can cost you money each year. When upgrading with solar PV, monitoring systems are recommended so that you can keep an eye on electricity usage and identify issues such as overvoltage early before they become larger issues, and this can then be used to take action to make your premises more efficient.
Upgrading Your Car Park Spaces
Upgrading your current car spaces is another opportunity to create increased revenue for your business. Solar carports are designed to protect vehicles, and then they house a solar array on top of the structure. This provides more opportunities for the installation of solar panels to generate electricity for your business. You can also integrate EV charge points, which you can make chargeable or free for users. This is a two-pronged approach that monetises your car park by generating your own clean electricity and having the option to charge money for EV charging.
Creating an Electrical Savings Action Plan
When approaching the electrical consumption of your commercial premises, you should carry out an assessment and then generate a relevant action plan. Solar PV panel installation, if you do not have a system or array, should be a top priority. You can then plan the funding that you will look for (PPA or CapEx) and then decide on the schedule as to when you are ready for installation. You can then consider other options, and we will help you with this during the planning stage of your solar panel system.