Commercial Solar Installers in Hampshire

Commercial installs are priced per kWp, and the rate falls as systems get bigger because scaffold, design and DNO fees are spread over more panels. These are realistic 2026 bands for Hampshire commercial roofs — trapezoidal steel, standing seam and flat roofs on units like those at Segensworth or Dunsbury Park are usually at the cheaper end; fragile or heavily-serviced roofs cost more.

*Assumes 60–75% of generation used on site at a typical 2026 business electricity rate of ~26p/kWh, plus export income on the remainder — see our current export tariff guide. Figures are before tax relief. Hampshire helps you here: the south coast gets over 1,500 sunshine hours a year against a UK average of around 1,400, so well-oriented commercial arrays here typically yield 950–1,050 kWh per kWp — above the UK norm.

One VAT point businesses often get wrong: the 0% VAT rate on solar (in place until 31 March 2027) applies to residential installations (and certain charitable-use buildings) only. Commercial installs are standard-rated at 20% — fully recoverable if you're VAT-registered, so it's cash-flow, not cost.

Solar PV is classed by HMRC as special-rate plant and machinery. That matters, because two widely-repeated claims are wrong: the 130% super-deduction ended in 2023, and "full expensing" does not apply to solar (it covers main-rate assets only). What you can actually use:

• Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) — 100% write-off in year one, on up to £1m of qualifying spend. This covers virtually every SME solar project in Hampshire outright.
• 50% First-Year Allowance — for special-rate spend above your AIA, deduct 50% in year one; the balance goes into the special-rate pool at 6% writing-down per year.

Worked example: a £45,000, 50 kWp system written off through AIA saves £11,250 in corporation tax at the 25% main rate (£8,550 at the 19% small-profits rate). Net cost drops to ~£33,750, and a 4.5–5 year payback becomes roughly 3.5–4 years. Your accountant claims it through your normal CT return — no scheme application needed. On grants: unlike the domestic side (ECO4, Warm Homes, or Hampshire County Council's Solar Together group-buying rounds), there is no general commercial solar grant in 2026 — the tax relief above is the incentive, and it's a good one.

Every Hampshire business connects through SSEN (Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks) — this county sits in their Southern licence area. Which application you need depends on size:

• G98 — up to 3.68 kW per phase (rare for commercial; connect-then-notify).
• G99 fast-track — for fully type-tested equipment above 3.68 kW per phase up to around 50 kW three-phase, SSEN runs a streamlined route with a response due within 20 working days — and if the network doesn't respond in that window, the connection is treated as approved.
• Full G99 — above 50 kW, apply before installing anything. SSEN must issue a connection offer within 65 working days for a standard application.

Parts of the south-coast network are congested, so larger schemes sometimes get an export cap or a reinforcement quote. That's not a dead end: a G100 export limitation scheme lets us install the full array size your roof and demand justify while electronically limiting what flows back to the grid — usually the fastest, cheapest answer, and one reason pairing solar with commercial battery storage often makes sense here. Tom prepares and submits the SSEN application, single-line diagram and commissioning paperwork himself as part of every commercial job, so nothing is installed that the network won't accept.

Hampshire's commercial building stock is unusually well-suited to solar: large, shallow-pitch steel roofs, high daytime loads, and the best irradiance band in the UK. Where we see the strongest numbers:

• Industrial and engineering units — Segensworth (Fareham), Chandler's Ford Industrial Estate (Eastleigh), Walworth Business Park (Andover) and Dunsbury Park (Havant): big roofs, weekday machine loads that soak up generation as it's produced.
• Offices and business parks — Solent Business Park (on our doorstep in Whiteley) and similar campuses: air-conditioning and IT loads peak exactly when panels do.
• Marine and boatyard businesses along the Hamble and Solent shoreline — workshops, chandleries and storage sheds with unshaded south-facing roofs.
• Farms and rural enterprises across Test Valley, Winchester and the Meon Valley — grain stores and livestock sheds with heavy daytime ventilation or refrigeration loads.
• Schools, halls and community buildings — see our dedicated schools & colleges page.

You'd be in established company. Portsmouth City Council has built the largest rooftop solar estate of any UK local authority, including the 8,545-panel rooftop-and-carport scheme at Lakeside North Harbour in Cosham generating around 4,000 MWh a year. At the Port of Southampton, ABP's 2,000-panel (871 kWp) array on the Horizon Cruise Terminal produces roughly 855 MWh a year to help shore-power visiting ships. Hampshire's biggest public and port operators have already run the numbers — they came out the same way ours do. Planning is rarely a barrier either: most rooftop commercial solar in England is permitted development, though listed buildings and conservation-area sites — common in Winchester, and in Chichester district just over the West Sussex border within our coverage area — need a check first. Our Hampshire planning guide covers this, and we confirm it at survey.

One small team. Every install. When you get a quote from Solent Solar, the team that surveys your roof is the team that designs the system, submits the SSEN application, installs the array and signs off the MCS certificate: Tom and his small team. No sales team, no subcontracted crews you've never met, no gap between what was promised and what turns up. For SME projects — roughly 10 to 150 kWp — that model beats a national firm on accountability every time, and if a project is genuinely beyond a sensible small-team scope, we'll tell you that at survey rather than overpromise.

• MCS-certified installation — required for export tariff registration.
• HIES member — insurance-backed workmanship protection.
• OZEV-approved — we can add workplace EV charging to the same project and DNO application.

On hardware, we specify SigEnergy, Fox ESS and GoodWe three-phase hybrid inverters and commercial battery systems — platforms we'd stake our own name on. We removed GivEnergy from our roster after GivEnergy Ltd entered administration on 9 April 2026: existing systems keep working (the monitoring app runs on a separate group company that is not in administration), but we won't fit new hardware whose manufacturer warranty can no longer be honoured. That's the kind of judgement call a commercial buyer should expect their installer to make for them. We also service what we sell — maintenance and monitoring stays with us, not a call centre.

Send us your postcode, roughly what your building spends on electricity per month, and a photo of the roof if you have one. Tom will visit, measure the roof and your half-hourly consumption pattern where available, and come back with a fixed, itemised quote: system size, generation estimate, payback before and after tax relief, and the SSEN connection route — no pressure, no commission-driven upsell, because there's no salesperson to pay.

• Call or message Tom directly: 07833 448687
• Based at Whiteley, Fareham (PO15) — covering all of Hampshire and 30 miles across the Solent, including Portsmouth (see our Portsmouth commercial page), Southampton, Winchester, Basingstoke, Andover and the Isle of Wight.

Explore the rest of our commercial services, or start with a free, no-obligation survey today.

How much do commercial solar panels cost in Hampshire?

What payback can a Hampshire business expect from solar?

Do I need planning permission or SSEN approval for commercial solar?

Can we offset the cost of solar panels against tax?

Do you install commercial battery storage and workplace EV chargers too?