Can a rented factory roof in Bangladesh have solar?
Yes, and it is done routinely, but the paperwork has to come before the design. Landlord consent, lease term against payback, who owns the array at exit, and the things to get in writing first.
Yes. Rented and leased factory buildings carry solar plants across Bangladesh, and there is nothing unusual about it. What sinks these projects is never the engineering. It is that the commercial questions get asked after the survey instead of before it, and by then a design exists that nobody has the right to build.
Three things decide it: who has to consent, whether the remaining lease outlasts the recovery period, and who owns the plant when the tenant leaves. Settle those three and the rest is an ordinary rooftop project.
Landlord consent, and what it has to cover
The array is a fixture on a building the tenant does not own, and the utility will want evidence of the applicant's right to the premises when the net metering file is submitted. A verbal agreement with the owner is not evidence, and it is not much use two years later when the building changes hands.
Get a written no-objection from the owner, and make it specific rather than general. It should name:
The roof area to be used and the plant capacity, so that neither side can later claim a different scope was agreed.
The mounting method, meaning whether the structure is fixed into the roof or ballasted, because an owner who agreed to a non-penetrating system and finds anchors drilled through the sheet has a legitimate complaint.
Roof access rights for operation and maintenance, including out of hours and in an emergency.
Responsibility for waterproofing at the fixings, and who attends a leak.
What happens if the roof needs repair or re-sheeting during the plant's life, and who pays to remove and refit the array while it is done.
Rights of a financier or ESCO, if the plant is not owned outright by the tenant, to enter the site and to remove their equipment.
Before any work starts, walk the roof with the landlord and photograph it, including every existing leak, corroded fastener and ponding area, and have both sides sign the record. A tenant who skips this step will be blamed for the building's pre-existing defects, and there is no way to argue it after the fact.
Lease term against the recovery period
An industrial solar plant is designed to last around twenty-five years and it takes a number of years to recover its cost. A tenant with a lease shorter than that recovery period, and no enforceable right to renew, is buying an asset for the landlord and paying for the privilege of installing it.
The test is not the nominal lease term. It is the term the tenant can actually enforce. A five year lease with a renewal option the landlord may grant is a five year lease. A five year lease with an option the tenant may exercise on stated terms is something else entirely, and it is worth negotiating that option at the same time as the solar consent, when the landlord is being asked for something and is inclined to be helpful.
Where the remaining term cannot be extended far enough, the answer is not to abandon the project. It is to change who owns it.
Three workable structures for ownership at exit
Tenant owns and removes. Simplest to agree and the most expensive to execute. Removal costs real money, modules that have been on a roof for years are worth a fraction of new, and the lease will carry a make-good obligation to reinstate and reseal every fixing. Workable, but the residual value should be assumed low rather than optimistic.
Tenant owns, landlord buys at a formula price. Usually the best outcome, provided the formula is written at the start. A straight-line residual over an agreed asset life is the least argued formula there is, because neither party has to agree a market value under time pressure.
Landlord owns, tenant buys the generation. The cleanest structure for a short lease. The owner or an ESCO funds the plant, the tenant pays for what it consumes, and the tenant is not investing capital in somebody else's building at all. This is worth proposing to a landlord who has several tenanted sheds, because the same arrangement scales across all of them.
Whose name is on the connection
This is where multi-tenant industrial buildings come unstuck. The net metering agreement attaches to the electricity connection, and the credit follows the connection holder. If the meter is in the landlord's name and tenants are billed through a sub-meter, then the agreement and the credit sit with the landlord, and the tenant who paid for the plant needs a written pass-through that survives a change of building manager.
Confirm three things before design: whose name is on the connection, what the sanctioned load on that connection is, since the net metering guidelines cap capacity against it, and which distribution utility issued it. Then, and only then, fix a capacity.
What to get in writing before the survey
The owner's no-objection, naming roof area, capacity, mounting method and term.
The remaining lease term, and a renewal option the tenant can exercise.
Roof access for maintenance and for emergencies.
Who holds the utility connection and who receives the net metering credit, with a pass-through if those are different parties.
A dated photographic record of the roof's condition, signed by both sides.
Liability for roof leaks, and the procedure when one appears near a fixing.
Removal, buy-out or transfer at lease end, with the price formula agreed now rather than negotiated later.
Insurance: who insures the plant, and written confirmation from the building insurer that the policy is not affected by it.