Tennant (me) putting solar on Landlords roof

[envance]

Hi, has anyone got any experience of how this could be played out from a legal point of view.
We rent a warehouse with a 100m long roof with perfect location for solar install.
Since our electricity bill is out of control we've got 3 quotes to install solar and the ROI would be in the region of 3 years at present.
The landlord is fine us putting the panels up but I want to protect the £30k investment in them if he chose to sell, he went bankrupt or we decided to move out (unlikely)
We're a bit stuck as to what sort of legal agreement we could put in place over this.

 

[MBE2017]

A clause that you reserve the right to reclaim your property at anytime with a sensible notice period, such as 30-60 days, and that ownership always remains with yourself.

 

[envance]

I was also thinking of a way to encourage them to buy the installation at the market rate at the time

 

[MikeJ]

Or you have a separate, long term lease on the roof space and either sell the electricity to the new tenant or the grid?

 

[petrometro]

I think there maybe a problem with who the contract is with. The landlord owns the freehold and so the solar panels supplying the tenant might not be possible because of the very reasons stated above. If the landlord goes bust the energy company has no recourse to the owner of the building. Something a legal eagle needs to resolve.

 

[petrometro]

one could of course set up a legal arrangement with the landlord that allows one to "rent the roof". The scheme for solar panels comes with I think three options. Pay no rent for panels, split half and half hire purchase or buy outright and then the electricity is 100% owned by the tenant. Again thats a legal eagle job and the solar people would have a contract to sign anyhow.

 

[DontAsk]

one could of course set up a legal arrangement with the landlord that allows one to "rent the roof".

This is how a lot of domestic installs were done. Householder gets free electricity but the installer gets all of the FIT payments. A potential nightmare when it comes to seling the house.

 

[WaveJumper]

Also just be aware if any work needs to be undertaken on the roof, you could be required to remove, and of course if the landlord suddenly decides at some point up the road the panels have damaged the roof in someway you could be on the hook for repairs. Not trying to be negative but something to think about especially if drawing up some sort of agreement.

 

[Lisa Thomas]

I was also thinking of a way to encourage them to buy the installation at the market rate at the time

They wouldn't be able to do that if they were bankrupt.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

30K seems a lot for solar panels and presumably battery backup, How big is this system?
Would the solar panels have much resale value after 3-5 years, cost to take them down and reposition them. ROI in 3 years seems rather risky

 

[BubbaWY]

30K seems a lot for solar panels and presumably battery backup, How big is this system?
Would the solar panels have much resale value after 3-5 years, cost to take them down and reposition them. ROI in 3 years seems rather risky

30K doesnt sound a lot. We are talking about a 100mt long roof. Ive done projects where the PV installation has been well in excess of 100K.

The ROI of 3 years does sound too good to be true though.

 

[JohnEBGood]

Are you sure the roof can support the panels.

I work in the steelwork industry as a subcontract design engineer. Warehouse frames are always designed to support the original specified design loading and don't generally have much additional capacity (usually very little at all, they are designed to the limit to win the project in the first place).

Clients wanting to add PV comes up frequently. They always seem surprised when told the roof won't support the additional weight without modification. The additional load usually adds 15-20% to the design loading.

Make sure you know the roof can support it. Don't just take the PV providers word for it....

 

[envance]

Are you sure the roof can support the panels.

I work in the steelwork industry as a subcontract design engineer. Warehouse frames are always designed to support the original specified design loading and don't generally have much additional capacity (usually very little at all, they are designed to the limit to win the project in the first place).

Clients wanting to add PV comes up frequently. They always seem surprised when told the roof won't support the additional weight without modification. The additional load usually adds 15-20% to the design loading.

Make sure you know the roof can support it. Don't just take the PV providers word for it....

Thanks for this, luckily the building in question used to have multiple 100kg cooling fans in the roof which have been removed. We've had a survey done and the solar array we're looking at won't take it anywhere near the loads it used to bear so it should all be good

 

[envance]

30K doesnt sound a lot. We are talking about a 100mt long roof. Ive done projects where the PV installation has been well in excess of 100K.

The ROI of 3 years does sound too good to be true though.

The ROI is now 16 months as our electricity has gone up again AND there's a grant available to cover 40% of the installation costs

 

[Scubadog]

ROI of three years is unheard of Expect 6 as an average.

The installation will require the roof tiles to be modified. If you ever attempted to remove these then you would have a significant bill to put right.

the installation will require a battery, meter, inverter and a few other things to be installed. Again, expect a significant cost to make good on removal.

 

[Scubadog]

The ROI is now 16 months as our electricity has gone up again AND there's a grant available to cover 40% of the installation costs

Don't believe it!
What grant is this? I have measured a few up for farmers which are a similar size and i can assure you it is definatly more like 6 year ROI.
You must be consuming HUGE power to warrant an installation that size, definatley beyond normal domestic use. You will be limited by G98 unless you can get a G99, but even then, at 7p/kwhr export, i dont beleive the figure you may have been quoted.

 

[envance]

Don't believe it!
What grant is this? I have measured a few up for farmers which are a similar size and i can assure you it is definatly more like 6 year ROI.
You must be consuming HUGE power to warrant an installation that size, definatley beyond normal domestic use. You will be limited by G98 unless you can get a G99, but even then, at 7p/kwhr export, i dont beleive the figure you may have been quoted.

This is a business forum, what makes you think this is a domestic installation. We're a business with 16 computers, servers, EV car charger, 250 LED lighting strips in our warehouse etc. It is a huge array because we're a good sized SME

 

[envance]

Don't believe it!
What grant is this? I have measured a few up for farmers which are a similar size and i can assure you it is definatly more like 6 year ROI.
You must be consuming HUGE power to warrant an installation that size, definatley beyond normal domestic use. You will be limited by G98 unless you can get a G99, but even then, at 7p/kwhr export, i dont beleive the figure you may have been quoted.

The grant is administered through a programme called BEEP

 

[Scubadog]

This is a business forum, what makes you think this is a domestic installation. We're a business with 16 computers, servers, EV car charger, 250 LED lighting strips in our warehouse etc. It is a huge array because we're a good sized SME

What size array and battery have you been quoted?

You must be using in excess of 20,000kwhrs per month to make your figures work! and that would assume you can generate 75KW during the 8 hours of usefully daylight every day!

Doesn't sound right to me.

 

[Scubadog]

This is a business forum, what makes you think this is a domestic installation. We're a business with 16 computers, servers, EV car charger, 250 LED lighting strips in our warehouse etc. It is a huge array because we're a good sized SME

Ermmmm i said defiantly beyond domestic use....so hence the assumption you were not

 

[WaveJumper]

Have you managed to make any progress on this project be good to hear how you are getting on

 

[SillyBill]

The ROI is now 16 months as our electricity has gone up again AND there's a grant available to cover 40% of the installation costs

I'm in a similar situation but we own the building, previously never considered as the payback looked sketchy and there was better use of our cash elsewhere, now with our bills at almost 60p kwh day rate and averaging 17k kwh/month (reduced significantly) it adds up. And your quoted figure looks reasonable to me, the system we were quoted a few years back was £48k, this on a roof quite a bit larger than yours. What grant are you able to get if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Scubadog]

I'm in a similar situation but we own the building, previously never considered as the payback looked sketchy and there was better use of our cash elsewhere, now with our bills at almost 60p kwh day rate and averaging 17k kwh/month (reduced significantly) it adds up. And your quoted figure looks reasonable to me, the system we were quoted a few years back was £48k, this on a roof quite a bit larger than yours. What grant are you able to get if you don't mind me asking?

What sort of things consume energy for you?
If it is motors, fans, chillers or any industrial or processes controls, I would suggest a quick chat with my team is quite likely to save considerable sums.