Serving Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital of Wales, with a 2021 census population of 362,756 and the largest commercial office estate in the principality. Major employers concentrated inside the central business district include Admiral Group with its FTSE 100 headquarters at Capital Tower, Legal and General, the BBC Cymru Wales headquarters at Central Square, Principality Building Society, NHS Wales at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff University, and the Motorpoint Arena Cardiff.
Commercial estate runs through several distinct districts. Capital Waterside at Cardiff Bay, the Cardiff Central Enterprise Zone, Cardiff Business Park at Llanishen, Celtic Business Park, Cardiff Gate and Cardiff Bay each host a different part of the office and light-industrial tenant base. The city carries the densest commercial office-roof stock in Wales, and many of those buildings fall under non-domestic MEES obligations that will require EPC Band B by 2030 or face letting restrictions.
FLD has delivered the Cardiff Crown Courts electrical refurbishment project, approximately £50,000 in value, covering the entrance and foyer with structured cabling to Cat6a, fire alarm interfacing, emergency lighting to BS 5266, and single NICEIC Approved Contractor sign-off. That project is our reference case for public-sector and secure-building commercial electrical work in the city.
Landmarks anchor the tourism and cultural economy. Cardiff Castle, the Principality Stadium, the Senedd at Cardiff Bay, the Cardiff Bay Barrage and Llandaff Cathedral each draw significant visitor numbers.
Regeneration pipeline through 2024 to 2026 is busy. Central Square completion, Callaghan Square Phase 2, the Cardiff Parkway private station at proposal stage, and the £500 m Cardiff Crossrail proposals together produce a substantial upstream pipeline of commercial rooftop stock.
At 940 kWh/kWp PVGIS yield (the lowest of our core coverage thanks to higher urban haze), a 120 kWp multi-tenant Callaghan Square rooftop generates 113,000 kWh a year. With 65% self-consumption at 28p/kWh and a tenant PPA structure, first-year benefit across tenants sits at approximately £23,000 with zero landlord capex.
Drive time from Swansea is 55 minutes. Cardiff is a strategic commercial focus for FLD across both solar and electrical scope.
Commercial sites and business parks
Very high energy intensityCapital Waterside
Cardiff Central Enterprise Zone
Cardiff Business Park Llanishen
Celtic Business Park
Cardiff Gate
Cardiff Bay
100 kWp reference system at 940 kWh/kWp
Modelled at 27p/kWh blended import, 12p/kWh SEG export, 80% self-consumption for very high energy intensity site.
Housing stock in Cardiff
Victorian terraces, interwar semis, Cardiff Bay apartments, modern estates
A typical 4 kWp domestic install here generates 3,760 kWh/yr. With 40% self-consumption at 30p/kWh and 60% SEG export at 12p/kWh, first-year saving is approximately £722.
Local landmarks and context
- Cardiff Castle
- Principality Stadium
- Senedd
- Cardiff Bay Barrage
- Llandaff Cathedral
Major employers we work with
- Admiral Group
- Legal & General
- BBC Cymru Wales
- Principality Building Society
- NHS Wales UHW
- Cardiff University
Looking after solar and electrical systems in Cardiff
The jobs that keep bringing us back to Cardiff tend to be maintenance and upgrades rather than first fits.
EV charger installation is the other upgrade that pairs with an existing array in Cardiff — charging off your own generation rather than off the grid changes the arithmetic completely.
On commercial premises in Cardiff, commercial LED lighting upgrades normally pays back faster than anything else on the building, and it cuts the load the solar has to cover in the first place.
Existing arrays around Cardiff lose output quietly — soiling on the glass, a string that has dropped out, an inverter throwing a fault code nobody reads — so solar panel cleaning and O&M is usually the first thing worth booking on a system that is a few years old.
Where a Cardiff system exports more than it uses, battery storage sized to the actual load is what turns that export back into self-consumption, which is worth roughly double what the export tariff pays.
We are 55 minutes from Cardiff in normal traffic, which is why we can put an engineer on a fault the same week rather than the same month.
Recent local developments
- Central Square completion
- Callaghan Square Phase 2
- Cardiff Parkway
- £500m Cardiff Crossrail proposals
