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Distilleries
220kWp PPA at a Speyside Distillery
A 220 kWp solar PPA at 12.8 p/kWh over 20 years delivers a year-1 saving of £22,000 for this distilleries client.
Anonymisation note
This is an anonymised composite based on three or more comparable UK PPA deals signed 2024-2026. Numbers are accurate to ±10% of real deals; site location and operator details are fictionalised.
| Deal summary | |
|---|---|
| Sector | Distilleries |
| System size | 220 kWp |
| PPA tariff (year 1) | 12.8 p/kWh |
| Contract term | 20 years |
| Year-1 saving | £22,000 |
A Speyside distillery, drawn as a composite
This is an illustrative distilling scenario rather than a named producer, but its shape recurs right across the sector. Picture a Speyside single-malt house turning out around 1.8 million litres a year, with six acres of ground and a maltings roof standing largely unused. Electricity demand here is relentless — mashing, cooling and process pumps run day and night — so shaving pence off every unit matters far more than any headline capital figure. Against the Scotch Whisky Association's 2040 net-zero pledge, and with the global brand owners it supplies pressing for supply-chain emissions data, holding position had quietly become the costly choice.
Why the funder built on the ground, not the roof
The maltings roof on its own couldn't carry enough capacity, so the array was designed as a 220 kWp ground-mount on spare land and paired, under a separate agreement, with a heat-pump retrofit for the stills. Because a PPA leaves the funder owning and maintaining the kit, the distillery put in no capital and took on no generation risk — and, since it never owns the asset, the capital allowances sit with the provider anyway. If that ownership trade-off is the live question on your own site, the funding routes compared page maps where a PPA beats buying and where it falls short.
The contract that got signed
What landed was a 20-year agreement at 12.8 p/kWh, with the provider absorbing planning, construction and lifetime upkeep. Its defining terms:
- REGO certificates transferred so every generated unit backs a Scope 2 renewable claim
- Ground-mount siting on spare land instead of the constrained maltings roof
- A companion heat-pump retrofit handled under a separate contract
- No capital outlay and no maintenance liability across the full term
Indicative outcome — and the delay worth flagging
On the seed figures, year one returns roughly £22,000 against grid import and moves the electricity footprint to a fully renewable Scope 2 footing, with a visible path to Scope 1 once the stills electrify. The honest caveat: the chosen land sat close to an SSSI, so a NatureScot habitats assessment added five months before work began. Run your own numbers through the PPA savings calculator, then see which funders write distillery-scale deals on the specialist funder list.
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