Solar Panels for Pig Farms

Solar panels for pig farms: cut the cost of round-the-clock production

Solar panels for pig farms are one of the clearest wins in agricultural energy. A pig unit is not a seasonal, daylight-hours operation — it is a 24/7 climate-controlled production system where ventilation, heating and feeding never stop. That relentless, predictable demand is exactly what makes rooftop solar such a good fit for a pig farm. Where an arable barn might export most of its generation, a pig house sized to its daytime load uses most of its output on site, the moment it is generated. This page covers sizing, official cost data, the equipment that drains your power, and where grants and tax relief stand in 2026.

A near-duplicate page targeting “pig farm solar panels” now redirects here, so whether you searched for solar panels for pig farms or pig farm solar panels, this is the page built for your sector.

Why pig farms are ideal for solar

Pigs are temperature-sensitive animals, and their housing reflects it. Unlike a cattle shed that tolerates wide swings, a pig unit holds tight environmental tolerances around the clock, and that demands continuous electrical load. Your load curve is unusually flat: ventilation fans run every hour of every day, farrowing houses keep heat lamps and underfloor warmth on for newborn piglets, weaner accommodation is held warm through the rearing phase, and automated feeding lines cycle through the daylight and beyond.

This baseload profile is the single biggest reason pig farms suit solar. Solar generates during daylight, and a pig unit’s daytime demand — ventilation ramping up as temperatures climb, feed milling and mixing running in batches, lighting on extended photoperiods to drive growth and breeding — lines up almost perfectly with the generation curve. The result is a high self-consumption rate on a correctly sized array, with most output used on site. Every kWh you self-consume displaces grid electricity at the full retail rate, which is worth more than the export tariff, and that is what drives the savings.

Energy is also a production cost that is hard to trim on a pig unit, and tariffs stay volatile. During a summer heatwave, ventilation runs flat out and your bill spikes precisely when margins are squeezed; during winter, farrowing heat does the same. Because biosecurity and welfare rules mean you cannot simply switch systems off to chase cheaper half-hourly pricing, you are exposed to whatever the grid charges. Solar gives you a block of generation you own outright, insulating a large slice of consumption from that volatility. Pig houses also offer large, simple roof spans — often uncluttered mounting area that turns otherwise dead roof into a saving asset. In England, rooftop panels on farm buildings are usually permitted development under Class J, with prior approval needed above 50 kW — see solar on agricultural buildings.

Typical pig farm solar system & costs

Costs scale with herd size and housing type. The official benchmark is DESNZ’s Solar PV cost data for 2025/26 (MCS-certified installations in Great Britain, including VAT where applicable, excluding batteries), which puts the 10–50 kW median at £1,262 per kW. Above 50 kW there is no official series, so larger arrays are priced from itemised quotes:

EU PVGIS modelling (south-facing, 14% system losses) puts yield at about 1,026 kWh per kWp a year on a 30° roof near Peterborough and 960 near York; a shallow 10° roof gives 927 and 868.

Payback depends on what the system costs, how much of its output the unit uses itself in daylight, and your grid price — so ask for a calculation built from your own half-hourly meter data. Smaller single-shed systems on an always-on load use almost all their output; larger multi-house arrays export more in quiet spells but save more in absolute terms. See our agricultural solar panel cost guide and its worked payback example.

Equipment & energy breakdown

Understanding where your power actually goes tells you how solar offsets it. On a typical pig unit the heaviest draws are:

• Ventilation and climate control — the largest single load on most units. Variable-speed extraction and circulation fans run continuously and ramp hard in warm weather, the exact hours solar generation peaks. Solar directly offsets this daytime ventilation demand kWh-for-kWh.
• Farrowing and weaner heating — heat lamps, heat pads and underfloor heating for piglets and weaners are a major year-round load, heaviest in cold spells. Where heating is electric, solar trims daytime consumption; where it is gas or oil, the electrical controls and circulation still benefit.
• Feed milling and mixing — on-farm milling and mixing of rations is energy-intensive and is usually scheduled in daytime batches, making it an ideal candidate to run straight off the array. Timing mill cycles to midday generation pushes self-consumption higher still.
• Automated feeding and water — feed augers, ad-lib dispensers, wet-feed pumps and pressurised water systems cycle through the day on a steady draw that solar covers comfortably.
• Slurry handling and lighting — slurry pumps, scrapers and agitation, plus extended-photoperiod lighting that drives growth and breeding performance, round out a baseload that rarely dips, even overnight.

Because so much of this load is daytime and continuous, a well-specified array on a pig farm self-consumes the bulk of its output. Adding battery storage extends the benefit into the night — capturing midday surplus to run overnight ventilation and feeding — and, critically, can keep essential ventilation and welfare alarms live during a grid outage, which at pig stocking densities is a genuine animal-welfare safeguard rather than a convenience.

Compare the demand profile with our other intensive-livestock sectors — the load curves on poultry farms and the heating and milking demand on dairy farms follow the same always-on logic that makes solar so effective across animal housing.

Grants and finance for pig farms

Grant funding for pig farm solar is thinner than it was. In England, the Improving Farm Productivity (IFP) grant funded 25% of eligible costs, with grants of £15,000 to £100,000, for rooftop solar and irrigation-reservoir solar only — ground-mounted arrays on land were not eligible. Round 2 has closed for applications, and no solar round is open at the time of writing (September 2026). Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own schemes.

Tax relief now does the heavy lifting. Solar panels are special rate expenditure under section 104A(1)(g) of the Capital Allowances Act 2001, and the £1m Annual Investment Allowance lets most farm businesses deduct the full cost in the year of purchase, cutting a profitable pig business’s tax bill in the year it invests. Full expensing does not apply to solar panels. The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) pays for any surplus exported to the grid, which matters most for larger arrays during low-demand spells such as between batches or after weaning.

For units that prefer to keep capital free, zero-upfront options work well: a Power Purchase Agreement lets you pay only for the solar electricity you use at a rate below your grid tariff, while asset finance spreads the cost over a fixed term against the energy savings the system generates from day one. Our grants and funding guide walks through eligibility, deadlines and how to combine these routes without one cancelling out another.

Get a quote for solar on your pig farm

Send your details through the quote form and we will reply by email. Ask for a structural survey of purlin spacing and roof-sheet condition before any work. Asbestos cement roofs are always fragile and cannot bear weight, HSE warns, so the usual routes are overcladding with non-asbestos sheeting on the existing purlins, or removing and re-sheeting — see our asbestos roof guide. Arrays above G98’s 16 A per phase (about 3.68 kW per phase) need a G99 application to your network operator.

Request a quote →

Related pillar pages

• • Farm solar costs 2026 — government data by size
• • Solar panels on farm buildings — roofs, rules and grants
• • UK farm solar grants — what is open and closed
• • 2026 grant position
• • Finance options — capex, asset finance, PPA
• • How to choose an agricultural solar installer
• • Farm solar maintenance after installation
• • Farm solar glossary A–Z
• • Worked examples by farm type (modelled)