Your electricity bill is one of your biggest controllable costs.
Commercial electricity has risen sharply over recent years while the installed cost of solar has fallen. A business that generates part of its own supply stops buying those units at the meter for the working life of the system.
The direction of travel has changed.
Two things have moved in opposite directions. What a business pays to import electricity has gone up, and what it costs to install generation on its own roof has come down. The gap between buying a unit and generating it is what an array is worth, and that gap has widened.
We do not publish market figures here, because the number that matters is yours. What your building can produce, how much of it you would use on site and how long the outlay takes to return all depend on your roof, your consumption pattern and your own unit rate.
Where the numbers come from
- Your roof outline, so the capacity reflects the space you actually have.
- Your consumption or spend, so self consumption is modelled rather than assumed.
- Your own unit rate where you give us one, in place of any standing figure.
- Every assumption used is printed on the estimate itself.
Paying the grid against owning your power.
Paying the grid
- Every unit is bought at whatever the tariff is on the day
- No asset on your balance sheet
- Exposed to market volatility at renewal
- An operating cost with no end point
Owning your power
- A known outlay against units you no longer import
- A capital asset with capital allowance treatment
- Partly insulated from tariff movement
- Generation continues once the outlay has returned
What decides whether it works for you
The strongest cases are buildings that use most of their electricity while the sun is up, because a unit consumed on site is worth considerably more than a unit exported. Sites that run at weekends, or through the summer, do better again.
The roof matters next. Usable area, pitch, orientation, shading and the age and condition of the covering all change what can be installed and what it will produce. So does the grid connection, since export beyond the agreed limit has to be either consented or constrained.
Rather than quote a general figure, we run your own building through the assessment and hand you the result with its workings. If the case is weak we will say so.