Solar PPA for food & drink manufacturing

2026 indicative PPA profile

Typical system size	200-1000kWp
Year-1 tariff	11-14 p/kWh
Year-1 saving	£40k-£200k
Parent sector	Factories & Manufacturing

Why chillers make food and drink the strongest fit in the factory sector

A bakery cools proving rooms and holds finished stock overnight; a dairy runs bulk milk tanks and blast chillers around the clock; a fresh-produce packer keeps cold rooms on temperature every hour it is staffed. That relentless refrigeration draw is exactly why food and drink manufacturing sits at the top of the factory PPA cohort. The base load barely dips, so almost every unit a rooftop array generates is used on site rather than exported to the grid. High self-consumption is precisely what a power purchase agreement is priced against, and it pushes the discount to grid rates further here than in most other processes.

System scale and the rate you would actually pay

Processing halls of this kind typically support arrays in the 200 to 1,000 kWp band, drawing on the generous single-storey roof spans that cover production and cold-store areas. PPA tariffs land at 11 to 14 p/kWh, comfortably below daytime grid import, and the annual saving runs from £40,000 to £200,000 depending on throughput and shift pattern. You can test where your own site falls before speaking to anyone using our savings calculator.

Operational realities worth planning around

• Hygiene and pest-control regimes mean roof works have to be scheduled around production windows and audit visits
• Refrigeration upgrades and PV are best co-planned, so the array is sized to the future chilling load rather than today's
• Retailer Scope 3 questionnaires increasingly ask for on-site generation evidence, which a metered PPA answers directly

Because these loads match solar output so cleanly, food and drink sites are usually structured as straightforward behind-the-meter deals with little wasted export. It is worth understanding how a behind-the-meter agreement works, then setting it against the wider factory solar picture to sense-check the fit for your own operation.