How Much Do Solar Panels for Restaurants Cost?
Restaurant-scale solar runs 15–50 kW for most venues, costing roughly £18,000 to £65,000 installed in 2026. Here are the benchmark numbers by venue type — and the payback arithmetic behind them.
2026 price benchmarks by venue
Small commercial solar prices by the kilowatt, with meaningful economies as systems grow. Expect £1,100–£1,400 per kW at the 8–15 kW end, easing towards £950/kW as you approach 50 kW. These are fully installed figures — panels, inverter, mounting, scaffolding, electrical work, DNO paperwork, and commissioning.
| Venue | Typical system | Installed cost | Annual output | Typical payback* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Café / coffee shop | 8–20 kW | £11,000–£28,000 | 6,800–17,000 kWh | 4–6 years |
| Takeaway / QSR | 10–25 kW | £13,000–£30,000 | 8,500–21,000 kWh | 5–6 years |
| Pub / gastropub | 10–30 kW | £13,000–£36,000 | 8,500–26,000 kWh | 5–7 years |
| Independent restaurant | 15–50 kW | £18,000–£65,000 | 13,000–43,000 kWh | 5–7 years |
| Hotel with restaurant | 30–100 kW | £35,000–£110,000 | 26,000–86,000 kWh | 4–6 years |
*Simple payback at 2026 commercial electricity rates, before Annual Investment Allowance tax relief. Venue-typical self-consumption assumed; your trading pattern moves these figures, which is why yield modelling from your own bills matters more than any benchmark.
A worked example: 30 kW on a 90-cover restaurant
As an illustration, take an independent restaurant trading lunch and dinner, six days, consuming 65,000 kWh a year. A 30 kW array (£33,000–£38,000 installed) generates roughly 26,000 kWh annually. With refrigeration baseload, prep-hours demand, and lunch service, the venue self-consumes about 70% — 18,200 kWh that would otherwise be bought at a blended 30p/kWh, worth £5,460 a year. The exported 7,800 kWh earns perhaps £400 under the Smart Export Guarantee. Total benefit around £5,860 a year: a 6-year simple payback that tax relief shortens further. The £1m Annual Investment Allowance also covers special-rate plant such as solar, so a business under the limit usually gets 100% relief in year one — here the full £35,000 against year-one taxable profits, worth £8,750 to a company paying 25% corporation tax. These figures are an illustration, not a quote for any real venue.
Then the part the spreadsheet understates: the savings are not a one-off. Panels typically carry 25-year performance warranties, so years seven through twenty-five generate electricity at almost no marginal cost, valued at whatever the future tariff happens to be. Energy price risk transfers from your P&L to your roof.
What moves the price up or down
Roof type: a clean pitched roof with good access prices at the bottom of the range; flat roofs add ballasted mounting; membrane roofs near end-of-life should be re-covered first (a sound installer should say so rather than fit panels over a failing roof). Scaffolding complexity: a high-street terrace with no rear access costs more to scaffold than a standalone building with a car park. Electrical distance: long cable runs from roof to distribution board add labour and copper. Extract terminals: arrays must keep clear of grease-laden kitchen extract plumes, which on small roofs can reduce usable area. Three-phase vs single-phase: a system of up to 3.68 kW per phase (about 11 kW on three phases) can connect under G98 notification; larger systems need a G99 application and DNO approval before connection, which adds lead time — paperwork and waiting more than cost, but it shapes the design.
Batteries: the honest version
Storage adds roughly £400–£600 per kWh of usable capacity — typically £5,000–£10,000 for the 10–20 kWh that suits restaurant scale. Whether it pays depends entirely on trading pattern. Evening-led venues gain the most: surplus afternoon generation moves into dinner service, lifting self-consumption from around 55% to 85%+. Daytime-led cafés usually should not bother — they already use what they generate. Ask any installer to model both configurations from your bills and show the comparison side by side; a battery is not automatically worth having, and a proper comparison will sometimes point to skipping it.
Tax, VAT, and the net cost
Commercial restaurant installs are standard-rated for VAT — the widely-advertised 0% rate (in place until 31 March 2027) applies to residential installations only — but VAT-registered businesses reclaim it in full, so it is a cash-flow item, not a cost. The substantive relief is capital allowances: solar counts as special-rate plant and machinery, and the £1m Annual Investment Allowance usually means 100% relief in year one for a business under the limit. The VAT and capital allowances guide walks through both, including the 50% first-year allowance position on special-rate plant and how sole traders differ from limited companies.
From benchmark to actual quote
The table above brackets the market; your number depends on your roof and your half-hourly pattern. To get a real quote, give an installer three recent bills, a roof photo or rough roof size, your postcode and your venue type, and ask for the yield to be modelled against your bills or half-hourly data. A proper quote states the system size in kW, the expected annual generation, the self-consumption share it assumes, the gross cost, the VAT treatment, and what is included (scaffolding, DNO application, commissioning). If you would like to talk it through, send your venue's details through the enquiry form and we reply by email. The kitchen energy guide is worth a read first if you want to understand where your consumption actually goes.