Could Agrivoltaics Power the UK? What the Evidence Says

Few farming topics attract bigger claims than agrivoltaics in the UK — farming and generating solar power on the same land. Headlines have suggested it could power the country; objectors argue solar takes good land out of food production. This article looks at what the evidence actually says, separates potential from what has been built, and sets out what government policy in 2026 means for a farm weighing up a project.

What the Sheffield research found

In February 2025 the University of Sheffield published research, carried out with the Norwegian research institute SINTEF, modelling where agrivoltaic systems could work across the UK. The university reported that agrivoltaics could meet the UK’s electricity demand more than four times over without sacrificing farmland, and that the most suitable areas were in the East and South East of England — naming Cambridgeshire, Essex and Lincolnshire. The work was led by Talitha Neesham-McTiernan with Alastair Buckley and Sue Hartley at Sheffield and Richard Randle-Boggis at SINTEF, and published in the journal Applied Energy.

Two things are worth keeping in mind when reading that headline. First, it is a potential: a modelled estimate of what suitable land could host, not a forecast of what will be built, and it does not account for grid capacity, planning or finance. Second, the research team’s earlier work in East Africa found crops such as maize, Swiss chard and beans could benefit from the partial shade panels provide — evidence from a very different climate, which is why UK field trials matter.

What has actually been built in the UK

The reality today is much smaller. The law firm CMS, in the UK chapter of its expert guide to agrivoltaics (updated April 2025), reported that “as of April 2025 there are 15 commercial operational agrivoltaics projects in the UK”, most of them “relatively small (i.e. generating between 1MW and 5MW)”. The same guide notes there is no formal definition of agrivoltaics in UK legislation — so “agrivoltaic” is a description of how a project is designed and farmed, not a planning or subsidy category.

Most UK “dual use” in practice is simpler than the elevated crop systems common in continental Europe: ground-mounted arrays with sheep grazing between and beneath the rows. Our guide to solar grazing covers how that works on the ground.

What government says in 2025 and 2026

Two recent government documents set the policy backdrop.

The Solar Roadmap (DESNZ, 30 June 2025) states that many solar projects are designed to enable continued livestock grazing, and describes agrivoltaics — the integration of solar with arable farming — as “a rapidly developing industry”, adding that government “is working to understand the opportunities to exploit this technology”. On land quality, it says lower-quality land should be preferred where agricultural land is needed, and that developers proposing to use best and most versatile (BMV) land must justify it and design projects to avoid, mitigate and, where necessary, compensate for impacts.

The Land Use Framework for England (6 May 2026) puts numbers on the scale. It projects land used for solar and wind at about 129,000 hectares by 2035 and 155,000 hectares by 2050 — roughly 1% of England’s land and 2% of its utilised agricultural area — and notes that some of that land “will continue to be used for food production”. It names “continued livestock grazing and agrivoltaics, the integration of solar with arable farming” as ways to keep farming alongside generation, and says development on BMV land may have potential for multifunctionality “such as through agrivoltaic systems”. Its commitment to safeguard BMV farmland is framed around permanent land use change, giving woodland creation and urban expansion as the examples.

Best and most versatile land: the planning test

For any ground-mounted project, the grade of the land matters. Government guidance on assessing development on agricultural land (updated 24 July 2026) defines best and most versatile land as grades 1, 2 and 3a, and requires local planning authorities to consult Natural England on proposals that are likely to cause the loss, or cumulative loss, of 20 hectares or more of BMV land and are not in accordance with an approved development plan. An agrivoltaic design does not change the land’s grade, but a genuine, evidenced plan to keep it farmed is exactly what the Solar Roadmap’s “avoid, mitigate and compensate” language asks developers to show.

What it means for a farm

• Rooftops first. Panels on farm buildings avoid the land-use question entirely and are usually permitted development. See our guide to rooftop solar on farm buildings.
• Know your land grade before you or a developer spends money on a ground-mounted design. Grade 3b and below is a very different planning conversation from grade 1 to 3a.
• Decide what “agrivoltaic” means on your farm. Sheep grazing under a conventional array is the proven UK model; elevated systems over crops cost more and are still early in the UK.
• Check the generation, not the headline. In the East of England, where the Sheffield work found the best potential, PVGIS gives about 1,040 kWh per kWp a year for a south-facing array at the optimum tilt near Peterborough (SARAH3 data, 14% system losses, queried 26 September 2026).

Agrivoltaics is not going to power the UK on its own, and nobody serious claims it will. But the evidence, and the direction of 2026 land-use policy, both support designing solar so that farming continues underneath it. For the practical detail — models, planning and costs — see our full agrivoltaics UK guide.