Will Solar Panels Help If Our Business Uses Most Power at Night?

A lot of businesses look at their operations and think:

“We’re busiest at night – so solar panels probably won’t work for us.”

Cold stores, manufacturing plants, 24/7 sites and hospitality venues often assume they’ll miss out because solar only generates in daylight.

The reality is more nuanced. Even if your peak load is at night, solar can still reduce your total grid consumption and improve your energy position over the year. In this guide, we’ll break down how that works, and when you might look at load shifting or battery storage as part of the picture.

Solar panels and night-time businesses: the basics

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First, an important distinction:

• Solar panels only generate electricity in daylight.

• Your electricity bill is based on your total kWh imported from the grid over time.

So the question isn’t “do we use power at night?” – almost every business does. The better question is:

“Can we use solar to shrink the total amount of electricity we buy from the grid, even if some of our biggest loads are overnight?”

For many sites, the answer is still yes.

Think in total kWh, not just clock time

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Most businesses with significant night-time activity also use a lot of electricity during the day:

• Refrigeration and cold storage that runs 24/7

• Process loads and machinery that start in the afternoon and run into the night

• HVAC, compressors, pumps and controls

• Office space, staff areas and lighting

  
  

A well-designed commercial solar system can cover a sizeable chunk of this daytime portion of your load. That reduces your overall imported energy across the month – even if you’re still buying a fair amount of electricity at night.

Put simply:

• Night-time usage doesn’t disqualify you from solar.

• It just means we need to look carefully at your load profile and how much of it falls in daylight.

Next steps: see how solar would work for your site

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If your business runs late into the evening or through the night, it’s understandable to question whether solar will help. But in practice, many 24/7 and night-heavy operations still see meaningful benefits by:

• Reducing daytime imports

• Covering part of their 24/7 base load

• Considering load shifting and, where appropriate, storage

If you’d like to see what that could look like for your buildings, you can:

• Use our PV system builder to outline your site, or

• Get in touch with the Pink Renewables team and we’ll review your data and talk you through the options.