Commercial Solar for Industrial Buildings

Industrial rooftops represent one of the largest untapped opportunities for commercial solar in Australia.

Factories, warehouses, workshops and logistics facilities often have large roofs sitting directly above businesses consuming significant amounts of electricity.

The opportunity looks obvious. But designing industrial solar correctly requires much more than calculating how many panels fit on the roof/

Learn more about the comercial solar rebate

A detailed commercial solar assessment should consider:

Electricity consumption: How much electricity does the business use?

Interval data: When does it use that electricity?

Roof area: How much roof space is genuinely usable after allowing for access, shading and services?

Electrical infrastructure: Can existing switchboards and associated infrastructure accommodate the proposed system?

Network requirements: What connection or export limitations apply?

Future electricity use: Will the business add machinery, electrify equipment or introduce EV charging?

Battery storage: Would storing electricity improve the business case?

What size commercial solar system do I need?:

The correct system might be:

50 kW.

100 kW.

250 kW.

500 kW.

1 MW.

Or another capacity entirely. Avoid selecting solar capacity according to an arbitrary package size.

The Australian Government recommends considering how much electricity the business uses, when it uses it, available sunny roof space and future energy requirements when sizing solar. For businesses with high consumption, maximising solar self-consumption can be particularly important.

Not automatically. A giant rooftop may technically fit a huge solar array, but the financial model still depends on what happens to the electricity produced. Solar can be:

• consumed onsite
• exported
• stored in a battery
• or potentially curtailed due to export restrictions.

The best-performing system is therefore not necessarily the largest possible system. It is the system best matched to your business.

Industrial businesses should consider expected changes over the next 5–20 years. These could include:

• additional machinery
• expanded production
• electric forklifts
• electric delivery vehicles
• fleet EV charging
• heat pumps
• electrification of gas equipment
• battery storage
• additional buildings.

Designing only around today’s electricity bill can leave a system undersized surprisingly quickly.

Don’t size your commercial solar system based on roof space alone.

MPV Solar assesses your electricity consumption, operating hours, interval data, usable roof area, electrical infrastructure, network requirements and future energy demand to design an industrial solar system around how your business actually operates.

Whether you’re considering a 100 kW, 250 kW, 500 kW or larger commercial solar system, we can help determine the capacity that makes sense for your site today, while planning for future expansion, battery storage, electrification and EV charging.

Planning solar for a factory, warehouse, workshop or industrial facility? Talk to MPV Solar about a site-specific commercial solar assessment.