Category: Procurement

Corporate PPA vs Grant-Funded Solar: Can You Combine Them?

PSDS has had no open window since Phase 4 closed in November 2024. Where that leaves the choice between a zero-capex corporate PPA and grant-funded ownership for a UK organisation in 2026.

A capital grant and a zero-capex corporate PPA look like they should be additive — free money plus a funded system. For most UK routes they are not, and the reason is worth understanding before either route shapes your board case.

PSDS: the route most buyers still think is open

The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme is the grant route most commercial and public-sector buyers ask about first, and it has had no open application window since Phase 4 closed in November 2024. Even while it was open, PSDS was heat-led: solar PV was only fundable as part of a bid replacing fossil-fuel heating in the same building, never as a standalone rooftop array. A PPA carries no such restriction — it is available now, to any site with suitable roof or land, independent of what happens to the building's heating system.

Where grants and PPAs genuinely can stack

The picture is not uniformly closed. Sector-specific schemes have come and gone alongside PSDS: the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund for energy-intensive industry closed in July 2025 with no successor fund. The PPA vs grant-funded comparison covers what remains in detail. Where a genuinely open capital grant does exist for your sector, the practical question is not "PPA or grant" but "does the grant require you to own the asset" — most UK solar grants are structured as capital contributions toward outright ownership, which by definition excludes a PPA, where a third party owns the system for the length of the contract.

The decision in practice

• Check the window is actually open before it enters a board paper. A grant scheme's own guidance page can go stale long after the window has closed.
• Check whether the grant requires ownership. If it does, and you want the capital allowances and the residual asset value that come with ownership, a grant plus cash or asset finance is the comparable route — not a grant plus PPA.
• Weigh speed against lifetime cost. A PPA deploys now, with no capital outlay and no procurement window to wait for. An open grant can beat a PPA on lifetime cost for a buyer who can fund the balance and wait for a window — but "can beat" assumes a window exists to apply into.

For most commercial buyers in 2026, the honest starting position is that a corporate PPA is the route that is actually available today, and grant funding is worth checking on a case-by-case basis against your specific sector rather than assumed as a parallel track. Our corporate PPA guide covers how a bilateral off-take contract is structured and priced.

PSDS Phase 4 closure and scope verified against gov.uk scheme guidance. Verified 17 September 2026.