Manchester Jewish Museum
Housed in the Grade II* listed former Spanish & Portuguese synagogue of 1874 on Cheetham Hill Road, the museum reopened in 2021 with a large new extension.
Learn more about Manchester Jewish Museum on Google MapsCommercial Solar Panels In Cheetham Hill
Are your chillers and warehouse lights costing more than the stock on the shelves?
Solar PV for the wholesale and cash-and-carry premises around Strangeways, Red Bank and Bury New Road
Most enquiries we get for commercial solar panels in Cheetham Hill come from wholesalers, and the maths is different from a big shed in Trafford Park. Roofs here are smaller and older, often split across several levels of a Victorian or Edwardian brick warehouse, so the array is limited by space long before it is limited by demand. On the other side of the equation, a cash-and-carry with cold rooms, chiller cabinets and long rows of lighting uses a lot of power during trading hours, which is exactly when the panels produce. The result is a system that is modest in size but whose output is used almost entirely by the business. We look at the roof first, the tenancy second and the meter data third, because in this part of north Manchester any one of the three can stop a project before it starts.
Free Solar Survey In Cheetham Hill
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About Cheetham Hill
Cheetham Hill's trading streets and the buildings on them
Red Bank, just north of Victoria Station, was settled by Jewish families from Eastern Europe between the 1840s and 1890s, and the district grew into a trading quarter for cloth dealers and wholesale clothiers. Michael Marks, who went on to co-found Marks & Spencer, lived above his Penny Bazaar at 20 Cheetham Hill Road. The trading instinct never left. Today Strangeways and the lower end of Cheetham Hill Road are dominated by wholesale, cash-and-carry and bulk distribution businesses, and Manchester and Salford councils are jointly preparing a regeneration framework for around 320 acres of Strangeways.
The building stock is dense and mixed. Along Great Ducie Street, Derby Street and the side streets off Bury New Road you find tall brick warehouses from the Victorian and Edwardian years next to later single-storey sheds with roller-shutter loading bays. Many have patched roofs, parapets, roof lights and old plant to work around. Under the railway at Back Red Bank, arch units have no roof of their own at all. Plenty of these businesses rent rather than own, so landlord consent shapes much of what we propose. HMP Manchester and the listed Manchester Jewish Museum are reminders that heritage is never far away, though no conservation area covers the trading core.
£0
Site survey and a review of your half-hourly data
kWh
Systems sized from your own meter readings
G99
Grid application drawn up and submitted for you
M17
Based on Trafford Wharf Road, Trafford Park
What we offer wholesale and trade premises in Cheetham Hill
Battery Storage
Keeps cold rooms and chiller cabinets off expensive weekday evening power, and suits arch units and buildings where the roof is too small or too awkward for panels.
Learn more about battery storage in Cheetham Hill →
Commercial Solar Panels
Rooftop arrays shaped to fit parapets, roof lights and split levels on older brick warehouses and wholesale sheds.
Learn more about commercial solar panels in Cheetham Hill →
Solar Panel Maintenance
Panels beside busy radial roads collect a film of traffic dirt. We clean, inspect and repair arrays already working in the district.
Learn more about solar panel maintenance in Cheetham Hill →More services in Cheetham Hill
The case for solar on a Cheetham Hill wholesale building
Smaller roofs and heavy refrigeration loads change the usual sums. These are the points that tend to matter here.
Nothing goes to waste
A cash-and-carry with cold rooms and full-height lighting draws more power at midday than a modest roof array can produce. That means almost every kWh the panels make replaces a kWh you would have bought, at a business price DESNZ puts at around 28p to 29p per kWh for smaller users in 2025, levy included.
Chillers work hardest when the sun is out
Refrigeration compressors run more on warm, bright days, which are also the days the array produces the most. That alignment is unusually good. The monthly yield around Manchester in May to July is close to four times the December figure, according to PVGIS, and summer is when chiller loads rise.
No conservation area on the trading streets
Manchester City Council's list of conservation areas does not include Cheetham, Strangeways or Red Bank. For most wholesale buildings that keeps rooftop solar within permitted development, with prior approval only for systems above 50 kW.
Small arrays sit under the MCS limit
Many Cheetham Hill roofs will take a system of 50 kWp or less. At that size an MCS-certified installation is what a supplier needs to see before paying for exported power under the Smart Export Guarantee, so we tell you up front how the system will be certified.
Something to offer the landlord
A tenant who funds solar on a landlord's roof is improving the building at their own cost. Agreed properly, with clear terms on ownership, roof repairs and what happens at the end of the lease, that can be a useful card to play in lease talks.
Short trip from our base
We work out of Trafford Park, usually 15 to 20 minutes across the city depending on traffic. That is close enough for a survey at a time that suits your opening hours, and for follow-up visits when a cleaning or inverter fault needs attention.
"Most of the Cheetham Hill premises we're asked to look at have far more refrigeration and lighting running at midday than the size of their roof would suggest."
Guarantees and warranties
Who answers for your Cheetham Hill installation, and for how long
There are two layers of cover on a commercial installation, and it pays to know which is which. The first is the installer's workmanship guarantee. It covers the way the system was put in: the fixings through your roof, the cable runs, the terminations, the protective devices and the commissioning settings. Its length and terms are written into the quotation, so you can read them before you sign rather than discover them afterwards.
The second layer belongs to the manufacturers. Panels normally carry a product warranty and a separate performance warranty, which promises a minimum output after a set number of years. Inverters and batteries have their own terms, often with cycle or throughput limits on storage. These vary by product, so every proposal names the exact models and attaches their warranty documents.
A guarantee is only as good as the install underneath it. That's why the structural check comes before the design is fixed, why every string is tested and recorded to BS 7671, and why the grid connection is commissioned to the settings SP Electricity North West has approved. If something we fitted fails because of how it was fitted, we come back and put it right.
In writing
Workmanship guarantee, set out in your quote
Per model
Manufacturer product and performance warranties
Test results, drawings, warranty certificates and the grid connection agreement are handed over in one pack on the last day.
Step by step
Putting solar on a Cheetham Hill building: the stages
- 1
Roof walk and a look at the bills
We get onto the roof, or as close as safe access allows, and check its size, level changes and condition. Your bills and any half-hourly data tell us how much of your trading-hours load the array could cover.
- 2
A layout that fits the parapets
Older warehouses rarely have a clear rectangle of roof. We design around parapets, lift housings and roof lights, and keep the 1 m edge clearance that permitted development requires.
- 3
Structure, landlord and network
A structural engineer checks the roof can take the load. We prepare a short pack for your landlord, and submit the G98 or G99 application to SP Electricity North West depending on system size.
- 4
Getting kit up a narrow street
Many premises front busy roads like Cheetham Hill Road and Bury New Road. We plan crane or hoist lifts for quieter hours, arrange any road space needed, and keep shop entrances clear during trading.
- 5
Mounting, panels and the inverter
Panels are mounted to suit the roof surface, with ballasted or fixed systems chosen after the structural check. The inverter goes somewhere cool and accessible, which is not always easy in a packed stockroom.
- 6
Testing alongside the cold chain
We test the system with your refrigeration running normally, so we know it behaves under real load. Nothing is switched off that your stock depends on.
- 7
Handover you can share with the landlord
You get test certificates, warranty documents, monitoring access and a plain summary for your landlord explaining what has been fitted and how to isolate it.
What to do in Cheetham Hill
Chetham's Library
Founded in 1653 and in continuous use since, this is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, a short walk south of Strangeways on Long Millgate.
Learn more about Chetham's Library on Google Maps
Heaton Park
Greater Manchester's largest park, over 600 acres, a short drive north up Bury Old Road, with the Grade I listed Heaton Hall, a boating lake and a tram museum.
Learn more about Heaton Park on Google MapsCheetham Hill on the map
Reviews
What Cheetham Hill businesses say about us
We're a new name, so you won't find a wall of reviews here yet. We'd rather show you nothing than make some up.
For a project this size, reviews were never the best evidence anyway. Ask any installer you're considering for a reference site you can visit, a year or more of generation data from a system they fitted, and the grid connection paperwork from a past job. If they can't produce those, keep looking.
What solar costs for a Cheetham Hill business
Smaller systems cost more per kW than big ones, and Cheetham Hill roofs tend to be small, so access and roof preparation make up a larger share of the price here. DESNZ data for 2025/26 puts installations of 10 to 50 kW in the North West at a mean of about £1,248 per kW, including installation and grid connection. On that basis a 40 kW system would come to roughly £48,000 to £50,000 as a rough guide. Multi-level roofs, parapet work, crane lifts on busy roads and any roof repairs can push that up.
Commercial solar in Cheetham Hill: questions we get asked
Do I need planning permission for solar on a building in Cheetham Hill?
Manchester City Council is the planning authority. No conservation area covers the Cheetham, Strangeways or Red Bank trading streets, so rooftop solar on a non-domestic building usually falls under permitted development (GPDO Part 14, Class J). Systems up to 50 kW need no prior approval; larger ones need prior approval from the council on appearance and glare. On a flat roof the panels cannot sit more than 1 m above the highest part of the roof, and they must stay 1 m from the edge. Listed buildings are excluded.
Is my Cheetham Hill warehouse roof big enough to make solar worthwhile?
Often it is, because the smaller system will be used almost entirely on site. A roof that only takes a modest array can still pay back well if you run refrigeration and lighting through the day. We tell you the expected yield and payback before you commit.
We trade from a railway arch. Can we have solar?
Not on the arch itself, as the railway is overhead. If you rent space elsewhere with a usable roof, or have a yard, there may be options. A battery charged on cheaper overnight power can also reduce evening costs without any panels at all.
Will older brick buildings need roof work first?
Sometimes. Victorian and Edwardian roofs have often been patched over many years. If the felt or covering is near the end of its life, it makes sense to replace it before fitting panels, because lifting an array later to repair the roof is expensive.
Areas we cover from Cheetham Hill
- Manchester
- Trafford Park
- Salford
- Cheetham Hill
- East Manchester
- Wythenshawe
- Leigh
- Westhoughton
- Bolton
- Horwich
- Wigan
Let us look at the roof
Send us a recent bill and the address, and we will arrange a visit to your Cheetham Hill premises at a time that does not get in the way of trading.