Disadvantages of Solar Farms: A UK Landowner's Checklist

A solar farm lease can be one of the steadiest incomes a piece of land will ever earn. It is also a very long commitment, and the downsides tend to show up in the small print rather than the headline rent. Here are the disadvantages UK landowners should weigh, with a source for each, before signing heads of terms or putting money into a scheme of their own.

1. The land is committed for a generation

Solar farm leases are long. Law firm Stephens Scown says leasing arrangements are generally over 30–50 years, and a Carter Jonas energy adviser told Farmers Weekly in 2020 that developers typically seek a lease of at least 35 years. The cost study Arup completed for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in 2025 assumed UK solar farms operate for 35–40 years.

They also take a lot of ground. Solar Energy UK puts existing UK solar farms at about six acres per megawatt, so even a modest 5 MW scheme ties up around 30 acres. Anything you might want to do with that land — sell it, build on it, take it back for cropping, pass it on with vacant possession — has to fit around the lease for decades.

2. It stops counting as farmland for payments

Land under a solar array has its own Rural Payments Agency land-use code, UT01, which the RPA lists as a non-agricultural use. Before you sign, check what that means for every scheme agreement on the parcels concerned, and whether any agreement has to be amended or ended — the time to find out is during heads of terms, not after the panels go in.

3. Less grass under the panels

Sheep can graze under a conventional solar farm, but the grass will not grow as it did. A Lancaster University and UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology study of a solar park near Swindon (Armstrong and colleagues, Environmental Research Letters, 2016) found the ground under the panels up to 5.2°C cooler and drier in summer, with less plant biomass and fewer species than the open ground nearby. Plan stocking on what the field will really grow. For crops under raised panels, see what trials found about crop growth under solar panels.

4. The rent does not share the upside — unless you negotiate it

A rent per acre is predictable, but it is fixed to the land, not to what the farm earns. Published rents cluster around £850–£1,100 an acre a year (Stephens Scown), while the electricity from that acre is worth roughly ten times the rent in gross revenue to whoever owns the panels — about £11,600 a year at the February 2026 CfD price. Two terms change that:

• A revenue top-up. Stephens Scown describes top-up rents where a share of the developer’s revenue, often around 4–6%, is paid if it exceeds the acreage rent.
• Indexation and reviews. Check how the rent rises over a 35-year term; a fixed rent loses value every year.

The Carter Jonas adviser’s rule of thumb was that any revenue share should at least match the base rent, and that a battery on the same site should attract an additional rent per megawatt — see how battery storage on farms is sized and paid for.

5. Years of uncertainty before anything is built

Most schemes start with an option: the developer gets the exclusive right to seek planning permission and a grid connection, and takes the lease only if both arrive. Stephens Scown notes that construction should take place within one to three years of the option being completed. Until then the land is tied up and the developer can walk away. Ask what you are paid during the option period, how long it can run, and what happens to the land if the scheme dies.

6. Planning is not a formality

In England, permitted development for stand-alone solar covers one array of no more than 9 square metres, so a solar farm needs planning permission. A site of 1 hectare or more is major development, with a 13-week target for the council’s decision. Since 31 December 2025, only schemes above 100 MW go through the national development consent process, so most farm-hosted solar farms are decided locally — and councils weigh the loss of best and most versatile agricultural land (grades 1, 2 and 3a), landscape impact and neighbours’ objections.

7. The grid connection can make or break it

A solar farm is only as good as its connection. In Arup’s sample, grid connection, substation and similar infrastructure made up about 18% of capital cost, and the network operator’s offer — its price and its date — can decide whether a scheme goes ahead at all. A site next to a substation with spare capacity can be worth more than a better field a few miles away; our guide to farm grid connections explains how G99 offers work.

8. Owning it yourself moves the risk onto you

Building and running your own solar farm swaps a rent for the full value of the electricity, but also for the capital and the price risk:

• Capital. Arup put the cost of UK solar farms above 5 MW at £526–£788 per kW in 2023 prices — about £526,000–£788,000 per megawatt, and more per kW on smaller sites.
• Running costs. £6,500–£12,300 per MW a year for maintenance, insurance and network charges, before rent, rates and finance — see the ways farms finance solar.
• Price. Large farms can bid for a Contract for Difference — the 157 solar farms that won one in February 2026 got £65.23/MWh in 2024 prices — but CfDs are only for solar above 5 MW. Smaller sites sell under a power purchase agreement or the Smart Export Guarantee, where business export rates read in October 2026 ran from about 3p to 15p per kWh.

9. Plan for the end on day one

Arup’s 35–40-year operating life means the end of a solar farm will arrive, even if decades away. Make sure the lease sets out who removes the panels, mounting, cables and compound; what condition the land is returned in; and how that is guaranteed if the operator no longer exists — for example a decommissioning bond. Check the planning permission’s conditions too.

So is a solar farm a bad idea?

Not necessarily. For the right land — poorer grade, open, close to a grid connection with capacity — a well-negotiated lease turns acres into a long, low-effort income. The disadvantages above are the points to negotiate and check, not reasons to walk away. For the numbers on the other side of the ledger — how much solar an acre holds, what it costs to build and what it earns leased or owned — see our guide to the 1 acre solar farm economics, which also covers what to check when buying an operating farm.

Sources

• Stephens Scown, “Solar farms: benefits for landlords” (last reviewed 27 September 2023).
• Farmers Weekly, Business clinic: “Is solar development still worth pursuing?” (1 June 2020), Martin Williams, Carter Jonas.
• Arup for DESNZ, Renewable Energy Generation Cost and Technical Assumptions 2024 – Onshore Wind and Solar PV, final report, 14 July 2025, Table 41 and section 6.
• Solar Energy UK, as reported by Carbon Brief, “Factcheck: Is solar power a ‘threat’ to UK farmland?” (25 August 2022).
• Armstrong, Ostle and Whitaker (2016), “Solar park microclimate and vegetation management effects on grassland carbon cycling”, Environmental Research Letters 11, 074016.
• DESNZ, Contracts for Difference Allocation Round 7a results (10 February 2026).
• The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, articles 2 and 34; The Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind and Solar Generation) Order 2025.
• Rural Payments Agency, land-use codes (UT01).