Commercial solar installers in Rhyl

Key facts

Where businesses are in Rhyl

• Cefndy Road Employment Park: Employment area on Cefndy Road in Rhyl. In January 2025 returnable packaging maker Thorpe Design and Technologies applied to the council for a new industrial building at Unit B to expand its welding capacity.
• St Asaph Business Park: Business park about five miles south of Rhyl, home to the OpTIC Centre, a purpose built research and development facility where Wrexham University's Glyndŵr Innovations works on precision optics and which offers incubation units and conference space for up to 200 people.

Large employers and sectors with sites here include:

• Tourism: Denbighshire Council put tourism's total economic impact in the county at £767 million in 2024, up 4.2% on 2023, from 6.35 million visitors, supporting more than 6,000 full time employees.
• Packaging manufacturing (Thorpe Design and Technologies): Thorpe Design and Technologies, a North Wales maker of returnable packaging with in-house polyurethane mouldings, applied in January 2025 to build a new industrial building at Cefndy Road Employment Park in Rhyl, expecting to create jobs.

Large, simple roofs on distribution sheds and modern industrial units are usually the quickest and cheapest to fit. Older mill, factory and workshop buildings can work well too, but often need a structural survey first, and roofs from before 2000 may contain asbestos cement: see asbestos roofs.

Grid connection

Rhyl is served by SP Energy Networks (SP Manweb, Merseyside and North Wales licence area). Almost every commercial system needs G99 approval from the network operator before it is switched on, and the question is usually how much the local network can take back. Where export is limited, a G100 export limitation scheme can let a larger array connect. See G99 and DNO applications.

Planning in Rhyl

Planning in Rhyl is decided by Denbighshire council under the Welsh rules. Many non-domestic roofs are covered by Welsh permitted development, with conditions, but not within 3 km of an airport or aerodrome or on listed buildings.

Points that come up locally:

• Rhyl's town centre conservation area was created in 2007 by merging two central areas and, when the council reviewed it, covered much of the centre from Abbey Road to Bath Street and from West Parade to the railway station, so check a building's status before planning roof panels there.
• In Wales, roof panels on a non-domestic building are usually permitted development if they stand no more than 200mm proud of the roof, but in a conservation area panels on a principal or side elevation wall visible from a highway need planning consent, and a listed building needs planning permission and listed building consent.

Our guides on listed buildings and conservation areas explain what these mean for a solar project.

What a business roof in Rhyl could generate

Modelled with PVGIS for the town centre, a south-facing roof at 30 degrees produces about 953 kWh per kWp a year.

Illustrative, not a quote: the same sums as our commercial solar calculator. A company paying corporation tax can usually shorten the payback with capital allowances.

Funding and support

• Development Bank of Wales Green Business Loan Scheme: Discounted fixed interest rate loans for energy efficiency measures and low carbon projects, with renewables including solar PV listed as eligible projects. Limited companies, sole traders and partnerships must be based in Wales, have traded for at least two years and have at least one set of filed annual accounts. A grant of up to 50% of the cost of a detailed energy audit, to a maximum of £10,000 (£20,000 total costs), is also offered. Check the scheme's own page for eligibility and closing dates.

National reliefs apply too: see grants and reliefs in Wales.

Solar across Denbighshire

At the end of 2025, Denbighshire had 5,369 solar PV installations with 27.4 MW of capacity, up 195% since 2020, according to government figures. The Denbighshire page has the full local figures and how they compare.

Nearby towns

• Colwyn Bay, about 10 miles away
• Llandudno, about 14 miles away
• Mold, about 18 miles away
• Birkenhead, about 20 miles away

Sources

• ons.gov.uk: census2021
• ons.gov.uk: datadownload.xlsx
• packaging-gateway.com: thope design technlogies expansion rhyl
• wrexham.ac.uk: Glyndwr Innovations brochure v2
• businessnewswales.com
• businesswales.gov.wales: enterprise zones
• anglesey.gov.wales: anglesey freeport moves into delivery phase as partners
• gov.uk: maps of flintshire and wrexham investment zone tax
• rhyljournal.co.uk: 17576255.rhyl conservation area changes will discussed denbighshires planning
• gov.wales: planning permission solar panels non domestic
• developmentbank.wales: green
• Yield: PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre), SARAH3 data, 14% system losses, for the town centre, modelled 4 November 2026.
• Council area figures: DESNZ, renewable electricity by local authority 2014 to 2025.