Commercial solar installation for businesses operating in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands. The service covers rooftop photovoltaic systems on commercial and industrial premises, from smaller units through to systems above 100 kW.
Commercial Solar Spain reviews and coordinates enquiries. Technical feasibility, system design, proposals and project delivery are handled by our installation partner, who is identified to you before technical assessment begins. You contract directly with that company for the project.
The first step is an assessment based on your electricity consumption and your building.
Request a Commercial Solar Assessment · See how commercial solar works in Spain
Premises suited to commercial solar
The service is aimed at businesses with a building and a meaningful daytime electricity demand.
That typically means warehouses and distribution facilities, manufacturing and processing plants, hotels, supermarkets and larger retail units, office buildings and business parks, cold storage, and agricultural or food production sites. It also covers commercial property owners assessing solar as an asset improvement, and multi-site operators looking at a portfolio rather than a single building.
What matters more than the sector is the shape of the demand. A building with sustained consumption through daylight hours will use a higher proportion of what it generates than one whose demand is concentrated early or late in the day. That difference, rather than the roof, usually determines whether a project is worth pursuing.
Sites requiring greater capacity are covered on our large commercial solar systems page. Industrial buildings raise their own constraints, which are addressed under industrial and warehouse solar.
Why consumption timing determines the design
The value of a commercial solar installation comes from electricity used on site at the moment it is generated. That kilowatt-hour reduces what the business imports at that moment. Generation the business cannot use is exported at a lower value or, under a zero-export configuration, curtailed and lost.
This is why a system sized from roof area or from an annual electricity bill will frequently be the wrong size. Neither figure shows when the business consumes. Two companies with identical annual consumption can require materially different installations because one operates seven days a week with continuous refrigeration and the other runs weekday office hours with a summer shutdown.
Spanish commercial tariffs add a second layer. The year is divided into six pricing periods for both energy and contracted capacity, and generation is worth more when it displaces the more expensive periods. Weekends fall entirely within the cheapest period, so a five-day operation generates a disproportionate share of its surplus when that surplus is worth least.
Proper sizing therefore comes from overlaying modelled generation against interval consumption data across a full year. The method is set out in our guide to sizing a commercial system around business electricity use.
What the initial enquiry requires
Enquiry review is quick, and it is more useful when the following is available:
- Business name and site location
- Property type and, where relevant, whether the building is owned or leased
- Operating hours, including weekend working and any seasonal shutdown
- Approximate annual electricity consumption or annual spend
- Approximate roof availability
- Recent electricity bills, and interval consumption data if you already hold it
- CUPS reference for each supply point, optional
The CUPS is the supply point reference printed on your electricity bill, beginning ES. It identifies the site and the distributor serving it. It does not by itself give anyone access to your consumption data, which requires your separate authorisation through Datadis or your distributor. How that information is obtained and used is explained in our guide to Datadis consumption data.
If any of this is missing, say so in the enquiry. Recent bills are usually enough for an initial review, with interval data requested if the project proceeds.
What the technical assessment examines
Once the enquiry is qualified and you have agreed to proceed, the installation partner's technical team carries out the assessment. It covers four areas.
The site. Usable roof area rather than total area, deducting perimeter zones, rooflights, existing plant and access routes. Orientation, pitch and shading from adjacent structures. Roof construction, condition and remaining service life. Structural capacity, and whether verification by a qualified professional is required before design is fixed. Access and lifting requirements for the works themselves.
The electrical position. Connection voltage, switchboard capacity, the proposed connection point, cable routes, protection and metering. Whether an export limitation system may be appropriate. Available capacity at the connection point can constrain what can be installed regardless of what the roof would support.
Generation and consumption. Modelled hourly output for the site's coordinates and roof configuration, overlaid against your interval consumption to produce the split between electricity self-consumed, exported and curtailed. Several capacities are compared rather than one.
The regulatory route. Whether the installation operates with or without surplus, whether grid access and connection procedures apply, the municipal works procedure and the registration and legalisation route in that autonomous community. These vary by location and are covered in our explanation of commercial solar permissions and grid connection.
Our guide to what a commercial solar feasibility study should include sets out the full scope and what a study should state it has not examined.
What a credible proposal contains
A proposal you can act on should give you the following without your having to ask for it:
Panel capacity in kWp and inverter installed capacity in kW, stated separately, since these are different figures and the second is the one Spanish regulation uses. Exact panel and inverter models. The generation model inputs, including coordinates, orientation, tilt, shading treatment and loss assumptions, so the figure can be reproduced. The consumption data used, with its date range and resolution.
Then the outputs that matter: self-consumed, exported and curtailed electricity as three separate figures, with self-consumed electricity valued against the tariff periods it displaces and surplus valued separately under whichever arrangement applies. Applying one price to total generation overstates the result, sometimes considerably.
Finally the commercial terms: cost with and without IVA, a written list of exclusions, the administrative scope and who handles each step, programme, payment milestones, and warranty terms with product, performance, inverter and workmanship cover distinguished from one another.
What drives cost and return
Installed cost per kWp often falls as systems grow because fixed project costs are spread across more capacity. That is a tendency rather than a rule. Roof condition, access, working height, cable distances and required structural or electrical work can outweigh the scale benefit.
Return depends on a different set of inputs: the proportion of generation used on site, the price and structure of the electricity being displaced, the treatment of surplus, financing cost, and maintenance and replacement assumptions over the modelled life.
We publish indicative figures rather than a headline price because a single number would be misleading. See what commercial solar costs in Spain and our explanation of commercial solar payback and return on investment, which includes a worked example with every assumption visible.
Self-consumed, exported and curtailed generation
These three quantities are frequently merged, and the distinction is where most inflated savings claims originate.
Self-consumed electricity is generation used on site as it is produced. It reduces what you import at that moment, valued at the cost you avoid.
Exported surplus is generation sent to the network. It is valued under simplified compensation, where the installation qualifies, or sold under producer and market arrangements. Either way it is worth less per kilowatt-hour than electricity used on site.
Curtailed generation arises where the installation operates without surplus. Output is held below site demand and the excess is not produced. It has no value.
A proposal that reports only total annual generation has not told you which of the three you are buying. Ask for the split.
The project route
1. Enquiry and review. You send the initial information. We review it against our installation partner's project criteria and confirm whether it should be taken forward.
2. Partner identified. We tell you which company would deliver the project, and you decide whether to proceed. Nothing is passed on for technical assessment before that point.
3. Technical assessment. The installation partner surveys the site and carries out the assessment described above.
4. Proposal. Capacity options, generation and consumption modelling, costs and exclusions, programme and regulatory route.
5. Contract. Entered into directly between you and the installation company.
6. Permissions and procedures. The proposal identifies the applicable municipal, regional and distributor steps and allocates responsibility for each one.
7. Installation and commissioning. Construction, testing, legalisation and handover documentation.
Steps 3 onwards are the responsibility of the installation company. Commercial Solar Spain is not a party to that contract.
The single-partner arrangement
Commercial Solar Spain is a commercial enquiry and coordination brand. We are not the installer, and we are not a comparison service, a marketplace or an independent adviser. We work with one installation partner, and that partner delivers every project.
There is no charge to you for the introduction. We may receive a fee from the installation partner when an introduced project proceeds.
The practical consequence is that we will not tender your project to several companies, because we work with one. What we can do is ensure the enquiry reaches the partner properly prepared, and that the company delivering the work is identified to you before any technical assessment takes place rather than appearing at proposal stage.
Benchmark the proposal
We would encourage you to compare any proposal you receive against alternatives. This is a long-term capital commitment on a building you presumably intend to keep, and one reference point is not enough to judge it by.
We have published the method we would use, covering how to normalise quotations onto the same scope, how to check a generation model against its inputs, which costs are commonly left out and how savings claims get inflated. It is written to be used against us as much as against anyone else.
How to compare commercial solar quotes in Spain →
Coverage
The service covers mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands.
Coverage does not mean a uniform process. Municipal works procedures are set by each town hall, registration and legalisation are administered by the autonomous community, and the distributor serving the site determines the connection procedure and the capacity available. Part of the assessment is establishing which route applies to your particular site rather than assuming a national one.
If a site falls outside the delivery area, we will tell you at enquiry stage rather than after you have committed time to it.
Frequently asked questions
Who carries out the installation? Our installation partner, a single established company operating across mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands. We identify the company to you before technical assessment begins, and you contract directly with them.
Is there a charge for the assessment? There is no charge from Commercial Solar Spain for the introduction. Any charge relating to the technical assessment itself is a matter between you and the installation company, and will be stated before that work starts.
What if we lease the building rather than own it? It remains possible, and it becomes a contractual question before a technical one. The landlord's consent is needed for works on the structure, and the remaining lease term has to be long enough to recover the investment. Raise it at enquiry stage so it can be addressed early.
How much information do we need before making contact? Enough to establish location, property type, rough consumption and roof availability. Bills are useful, interval data more so, but neither is required to start.
Can we enquire about several sites at once? Yes. Send the basic details for each site and we will establish whether they fall within the installation partner's project criteria. Each site will still require its own technical assessment.
Does the business still buy electricity from the grid? Yes. A grid-connected system supplies part of the building's demand during daylight and the grid supplies the shortfall, at night and whenever consumption exceeds generation.
What happens above 100 kW? Simplified surplus compensation is no longer available, and additional producer, market and administrative requirements may apply depending on the configuration. The consequences are set out in commercial solar above 100 kW in Spain.
How long does a project take? The physical installation is usually the shorter part. Surveys, engineering, procurement, permissions, distributor procedures and legalisation all contribute, and the regulatory route has the greatest influence on the overall timetable. Any date given before that route is established should be treated as provisional.
Request a commercial solar assessment
Send your site details and we will review the enquiry against our installation partner's project criteria. If it is suitable, we will identify the installation company and confirm the next step with you before anything proceeds to technical assessment.
Request a Commercial Solar Assessment
For businesses, commercial property owners and multi-site operators in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands.