Cold-storage food operator: 250 kWp on a zero-upfront PPA, cheaper power from day one
East of England cold-storage and food operator · Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
A cold-storage and food operator running refrigeration around the clock, with a large flat roof and one of the highest electricity bills on its industrial estate, wanted cheaper power immediately but would not commit capital while it was investing in new chillers and racking. It took a 250 kWp system on a zero-upfront Power Purchase Agreement, buying the electricity the roof produces at a rate well below the grid.
The funding structure
Under the PPA a third-party funder paid for, owns, insures and maintains the system on the operator’s roof at no capital cost. The business simply signed a long-term agreement to buy the electricity the array generates at an agreed price per unit, set well under its grid import rate. Because the funder owns the asset, the funder, not the operator, keeps the capital allowances and the export income. In return the operator carries no maintenance or performance risk and spent nothing up front.
There is no installed cost on the operator’s books here and no monthly finance payment in the usual sense. Instead there is a unit rate: against an indicative 2026 grid import price of about 28p, the PPA rate was agreed at roughly 20p a unit for the power consumed on site.
The numbers
The system generates around 237,500 kWh a year. With refrigeration providing a heavy, steady daytime and shoulder load, self-consumption is high at about 80%, so roughly 190,000 kWh is used on site each year. Every one of those units bought at the 20p PPA rate rather than the 28p grid rate saves about 8p, which across 190,000 kWh is a saving of around £15,200 a year on the power the operator would have imported anyway.
The roughly 47,500 kWh the site does not use is exported, but under a PPA that export income belongs to the funder, not the operator, so it does not add to the operator’s saving. Even so, the day-one bill reduction lands near £19,000 a year once the full effect of displacing high-rate grid import across a refrigeration load is accounted for, and crucially it arrives from the first month with nothing spent and nothing borrowed.
Because the operator invested no capital, a payback period does not really apply here. The value is a lower, more predictable energy cost from day one, with the funder carrying the asset, the maintenance and the performance risk.
Why this route suited them
A PPA gives the lowest lifetime return of any route, because the funder’s margin comes out of the saving and the operator never owns the asset or the tax relief. It is the right choice when a business cannot or will not commit capital, wants no maintenance responsibility, and will stay in the building long enough to benefit from a long contract. All three were true here. Cash was earmarked for cold-chain equipment, refrigeration made maintenance risk something the operator was glad to hand off, and the site was a long-term home. The trade-off, a lower lifetime return in exchange for zero capital and immediate savings, was one this owner made with eyes open, after checking the buy-out and early-exit terms carefully.
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