The North East is still a place that makes things. The car plant at Sunderland and its suppliers around Washington, engineering and manufacturing firms on the big County Durham business parks, process, chemical and engineering businesses on Teesside, and farms across Durham and Northumberland all use most of their power during the working day. Plenty of them own their sites. BrightEdge Solar designs and installs commercial solar PV and battery storage for factories, warehouses, farms and public buildings across the North East. We’re based in Beverley, East Yorkshire, and travel nationally for larger commercial projects.
Presses, robots, compressors, extraction, process plant and lighting all run while the sun is up. Every unit you generate and use on site is a unit you don't buy at full price.
Modern portal-frame units on the A1, A19 and A66 estates often have plenty of usable roof.
From first call to aftercare
Initial call: we look at your bills and, ideally, half-hourly data. Desktop design: satellite imagery and mapping give us an initial layout and estimate, often before we visit.
Site survey: roof, structure, electrical supply, existing G99 approvals and access. Proposal: final design, expected generation, costs and timescale.
G99 application: we submit and track it, along with any planning application. Installation and commissioning: MCS-compliant, planned around your busy periods.
Remote monitoring, plus optional annual maintenance to MCS MIS3002.
Initial call: we look at your bills and, ideally, half-hourly data. Desktop design: satellite imagery and mapping give us an initial layout and estimate, often before we visit.
Site survey: roof, structure, electrical supply, existing G99 approvals and access. Proposal: final design, expected generation, costs and timescale.
G99 application: we submit and track it, along with any planning application. Installation and commissioning: MCS-compliant, planned around your busy periods.
Remote monitoring, plus optional annual maintenance to MCS MIS3002.
See our recent projects
Factories and engineering firms. Automotive suppliers, fabricators, precision engineers, plastics, food producers and process businesses in Sunderland, Washington, Newton Aycliffe, Durham, Stockton, Billingham, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Gateshead.
Warehouses and logistics. Distribution and trade units on the A1(M) and A19 corridors and around the Tees and Tyne ports. See warehouse and industrial solar.
Farms and rural estates. Livestock and arable farms, stores and estate workshops across County Durham, the Tees Valley and Northumberland. See agricultural and farm solar.
Schools and academies. Daytime use during term matches generation well. We plan work around the school calendar.
Churches and charities. Halls, community buildings and charity premises. We give trustees plain figures for their committee.
Public sector. Council, NHS and emergency-service buildings, depots and leisure sites. We hold CHAS accreditation, which public bodies and main contractors often ask for. See office and public sector solar.
Including on systems installed by other firms: inspection, fixing and re-certifying non-compliant systems, and ongoing maintenance.
Yes. We cover Teesside, County Durham, Sunderland, Tyneside and Northumberland from our base in Beverley, and we install commercial systems across the UK.
Northern Powergrid, the same company that runs the network in Hull and East Yorkshire. We handle the G99 application with them, which typically adds 8–12 weeks before installation.
Yes. We work to your site inductions, permits and RAMS, and if you or your customer has an approved-equipment list, we can design the system around it.
We design the fixings and layout for the site’s exposure, as we did at Woodsmith Mine near Whitby, where we used a low-ballast flat-roof system designed for a high-wind location. We check the roof structure and condition first.
Typically about £17,000–£21,000 for 30 kWp, £28,000–£37,000 for 50 kWp and £50,000–£65,000 for 100 kWp, excluding VAT. Systems of 150 kWp and above are typically about £420–£650 per kWp. Book a free survey for an accurate quote.
Many rooftop systems on commercial buildings fall under permitted development, subject to conditions and size limits. Ground-mounted arrays are more likely to need planning permission, and listed buildings and protected areas can need extra checks. We’ll check for your site and apply if it’s needed.
Coastal and upland sites in the North East see strong winds and salt air. We design fixings and layouts for the site’s exposure. On the same Northern Powergrid network, we built a 51.03 kWp low-ballast flat-roof array at Woodsmith Mine near Whitby, designed for a high-wind location. We check the roof structure and condition first on every job.
We work with businesses, farms and organisations across:
These are areas we cover, not a list of past installs. We also cover commercial solar in York and North Yorkshire.
A battery stores midday surplus for early starts, late shifts and the evening, instead of exporting it at a low rate. It can also help where the network operator limits your export, and on some tariffs it can trim short demand peaks. We size batteries from your half-hourly data, your tariff and your solar generation, and we’ll tell you if a battery doesn’t pay its way. Commercial battery storage typically costs about £350–£450 per kWh installed, including the hybrid inverter. More detail: commercial battery storage.
The North East’s local network is run by Northern Powergrid (its Northeast licence area), the same company that runs the network in Hull and East Yorkshire, where we’re based. Almost every commercial system needs G99 approval before installation. We prepare and submit the application with the technical details and single-line diagrams the DNO needs, and deal with any queries. Approval typically adds 8–12 weeks before installation, so we start it early.
If the DNO limits your export, a G100 export limitation scheme or a battery means you still use what you generate on site. Already have G99 approval for an older system? Tell us at the start, because we can sometimes size the new inverter to fit within it. Read more: G99 applications explained.
Many rooftop systems on commercial buildings fall under permitted development, subject to conditions and size limits. Ground-mounted arrays are more likely to need planning permission. Local factors include:
We’ll check for your site and apply if it’s needed.
Indicative installed costs for commercial solar PV, by system size:
Commercial battery storage typically costs about £350–£450 per kWh installed, including the hybrid inverter. As a real example, a 42 kWh battery with a 20 kW hybrid inverter added to an existing system came to about £16,000.
Prices exclude VAT, which is charged at 20% on commercial installs. Simple roofs with good access sit at the lower end. Fibre-cement roofs, premium panels, scaffolding and safety systems such as rooflight protection or Man-Safe lifelines push the price up. Every quote sets out equipment, installation, scaffolding and DNO costs separately, so you can compare like for like.
Payback depends on how much of the generation you use on site, your unit rate, the system size and how easy the roof is to work on. We model it from your half-hourly data and show the expected payback in your proposal.
Send us a recent electricity bill, your half-hourly data if you have it, and details of any existing G99 approval. We’ll come back with an initial view on system size and whether solar makes sense for your building.
Book a free survey · Call 01482 765063 · info@brightedgesolar.com
BrightEdge Solar Ltd, Colonial House, Swinemoor Lane, Beverley HU17 0LS. MCS certified (NIC-601602). RECC member.