Midshires Engineering: 480kWp IETF-Funded Solar

The site

Midshires Precision Engineering operates a 4,200 m² CNC machine shop on the Whitley Business Park in south Coventry. Annual electricity demand had risen from 1.8 GWh in 2019 to 2.6 GWh by 2023, driven by added 5-axis machining cells for aerospace work. Half-hourly meter data showed a strong daytime profile from 06:30 to 19:30 weekdays, with weekend operation on roughly 35% of weeks.

The brief

The owner, John Marbury, had been quoted £530k for a 480kWp rooftop install by a local installer. Pre-grant payback came in at 7.4 years on the installer’s spreadsheet — close to John’s internal hurdle of 7 years, but not enough to clear the board. He came to us looking for grants, having heard the IETF mentioned at an MTC industry event.

What we did

The first call established that Midshires had three things going for an IETF application: a clear energy-intensity story (1.4 GWh/£m of revenue, well above the IETF threshold), a documented decarbonisation roadmap from a 2022 ESOS audit, and clean half-hourly meter data going back four years. What it lacked was a credible carbon-saving narrative tying the solar to operational change.

We rebuilt the project as an integrated decarbonisation package: 480kWp rooftop PV, a 200kWh BESS to firm self-consumption against weekend operation, plus a heat-recovery upgrade on the chiller circuit that reused waste heat in the parts-washing system. The combined application scored materially higher than solar alone would have done, because IETF rewards tCO2e per pound of grant and the heat-recovery measure added 24 tCO2e/year for marginal extra capex.

The numbers

• Headline capex: £530,000 (PV) + £88,000 (BESS) + £62,000 (heat recovery) = £680,000
• IETF grant awarded: £142,800 (21% effective rate against total capex)
• Full Expensing tax relief: £134,300 (25% of £537,200 net of grant)
• Net cost to client: £402,900
• Annual savings (electricity displacement + SEG export + heat recovery): £148,000
• Annual carbon savings: 188 tCO2e
• Payback: 4.1 years (vs. 7.4 years without grant or Full Expensing)

What was hard

The IETF window opened with 9 weeks to submission. The structural assessment was the long pole — the original 1998 portal frame was rated for 14 kg/m² roof load before bracing. We ran the structural engineer in parallel with application drafting and scheduled four extra portal-frame braces, costed at £18k, into the capex stack.

The DNO connection was the second sticking point. UK Power Networks initially flagged the site as constrained on the local 11kV feeder. We avoided the £42k network reinforcement charge by accepting an export-limited connection at 350kW (vs. 480kW peak generation) — the BESS soaks up the curtailed kWh on the most productive 60 days of the year, so revenue impact is under 2%.

What happened next

The system was commissioned in September 2024, three weeks ahead of the IETF milestone schedule. First-year monitoring shows 472,000 kWh produced (vs. 470,000 kWh modelled), and self-consumption averaged 81% — slightly above the 78% in the financial model thanks to a contract win that pushed weekend operations up 15%. Midshires has since asked us to scope an additional 220kWp on a neighbouring leased unit, and is in pre-application discussions for IETF Phase 3.

Why it worked

Three things. First, the bundled measure approach lifted the IETF carbon score above the funding threshold; solar alone would have lost the scoring competition. Second, accepting the export-limited connection saved £42k in DNO fees with marginal financial impact thanks to the BESS. Third, Full Expensing was modelled into the case from week one, so the board paper showed the all-in net cost — not a misleadingly high pre-tax figure that would have made the project look worse than it was.