Cardigan, or Aberteifi, sits on the Teifi Estuary at the northern tip of Pembrokeshire’s boundary with Ceredigion. The SA43 postcode covers the town itself plus the surrounding rural belt out to Cenarth and St Dogmaels. For commercial solar, the combination of Atlantic-facing irradiance, a mixed economy of hospitality, food production and light industrial, and Ceredigion County Council’s generally pragmatic approach to rooftop PV makes Cardigan a stronger candidate than its remoteness might suggest.
What SA43 yields in practice
PVGIS modelling for SA43 typically returns 960 to 985 kWh per kWp per annum for a well-oriented rooftop array at 25 to 35 degrees pitch. That is within one or two percent of Swansea and Cardiff, and fractionally above the South Wales average because the coastal position reduces summer cloud cover slightly. Pembrokeshire’s SA62 (St Davids) sits higher still, but Cardigan is firmly in the upper half of the Welsh PV yield distribution.
For a 50 kWp commercial rooftop in Cardigan on a clean south-facing pitch, expect 48,000 to 49,500 kWh per year in year one, derating at 0.4 to 0.5 percent per annum over a 25-year panel warranty.
Local business mix and where solar lands cleanly
Cardigan’s commercial estate around Park Place and Pendre has a cluster of food-sector SMEs, the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre, independent retail and a steady rolling stock of holiday-let freeholders. The bigger rooftop opportunities are:
- Food production and cold storage — sites with 24/7 refrigeration loads are the easiest commercial solar business case in the Ceredigion area. Self-consumption rates of 70 to 85 percent are typical because the compressors run through the peak solar window.
- Holiday parks and hospitality — sites like the Teifi Marshes edge or the Gwbert coastal strip have flat roofs and steady summer demand that correlates exactly with peak generation.
- Light industrial and agricultural — large single-aspect rooftops in the Cilgerran and Llechryd corridor, often with three-phase supplies already in place.
Ceredigion Council planning
For rooftop PV on a commercial building in Cardigan, permitted development under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Wales) Order applies in most cases. The thresholds worth knowing:
- No single panel may project more than 200 mm from the roof plane
- The array must not be on a listed building or within a scheduled monument without listed building consent
- On buildings within the Cardigan Conservation Area (covering much of the town centre around High Street and Pendre), full planning permission is usually required rather than permitted development
For arrays above 50 kW or with battery storage, a G99 Type A application to the DNO (NGED in this region) is the gating item, typically 6 to 8 weeks. We can lodge this concurrently with the FLD survey so it does not sit on the critical path.
The Ceredigion distance question
Cardigan is a 90-minute drive from our Swansea base. For a 50 kWp commercial project the mobilisation cost is modest compared to the system value, and we batch site visits where possible. We have delivered installs across SA43, SA45 and SA46 and the logistics are well-understood.
What a Cardigan commercial install typically involves
- Free site survey — roof condition, aspect, pitch, shading from coastal light and nearby buildings, existing DB capacity, inverter siting, cable routes.
- G99 application — submitted in parallel with the design, typically approved within 6 to 8 weeks for sites up to 1 MW.
- Install and commissioning — 1 to 2 weeks on-site for most 50 to 150 kWp commercial rooftops; longer for sites needing a DB upgrade or roof strengthening.
- Handover and documentation — MCS certificate, electrical installation certificate, O and M manual, optional remote monitoring.
If you own or manage a commercial rooftop in SA43 and want a realistic figure against your actual HH meter data, call Paul direct on 01792 321123 for a free assessment.