Solar Panels for Farms in Devon

An independent guide to solar on farms in Devon and the wider Devon area, including Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset: what it costs, the planning rules, the grid and the funding position, from official sources.

Agricultural solar panels in Devon

Devon is one of the great farming counties of the South West, and one of the largest dairy counties in the United Kingdom. The land runs from the high moorland grazing of Dartmoor and Exmoor, down through the red-soil mixed and dairy country around Crediton, Tiverton and the Culm valley, to the milder, more horticultural ground of the South Hams and the Exe estuary. That spread of enterprises — intensive dairy herds, beef and sheep on the moors, mixed arable-and-stock holdings inland, and some fruit and vegetable growing in the south — is exactly the kind of farming that solar pays back fastest. A 200-cow dairy running vacuum pumps, plate coolers, bulk milk tanks and a robot or two burns electricity steadily through daylight hours, which is precisely when a roof full of panels is producing. The closer your demand sits to your generation, the shorter your payback.

Two things make Devon stand out. First, irradiance: the south of the county sees roughly 1,000 kWh/m² per year, among the highest figures in the UK, so a Devon array simply earns more per installed kilowatt than the same panels in the Midlands or the North. Second, the grid. Your distribution network operator across Devon is National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED, formerly Western Power Distribution / WPD), and the connection terms NGED offers will shape whether you size purely to your own demand or build bigger to export. With grid electricity still volatile, every unit you self-generate is a unit you no longer buy at the import price — and across a dairy parlour, grain drying floor or refrigerated store, that adds up quickly. For cost, DESNZ’s Solar PV cost data for 2025/26 put the median installed price of a 10–50 kW system in Great Britain at £1,262 per kW; payback depends on how much of the output the farm uses itself, and the cost guide shows the arithmetic.

Land rent and self-generation are different businesses — the per-acre income comparison.

Farm solar across Devon by district

Devon’s farming is genuinely regional, so system sizing and economics shift as you move across the county. The table below gives typical patterns around the main market towns.

These are indicative ranges, not quotes. The right size for your holding depends on your half-hourly consumption profile, available south- and east-west-facing roof, and what NGED will allow you to export. A holding that already runs a milking robot, a grain drier or a packhouse chiller behaves very differently from a dry-stock unit that draws little through the day, and the gap between those two profiles can move the ideal array size by a factor of three. East-west roof orientation, common on Devon’s long open-fronted livestock sheds, spreads generation across the morning and afternoon shoulders rather than concentrating it at midday — which often matches dairy and horticultural demand better than a single south pitch. Sizing should come from your actual meter data, not a rule of thumb, with battery storage modelled wherever evening or early-morning load is heavy enough to justify it.

Grants and tax relief for Devon farms

Devon farms are in England, and no England grant for solar panels on farms is open. Round 2 of the Improving Farm Productivity (IFP) grant paid up to 25% of eligible costs — £15,000 to £100,000 for solar on farm-building rooftops or irrigation reservoirs, not ground-based arrays — but it closed to full applications on 31 July 2025 with no further round announced, and the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2026 window closed on 12 May 2026 without solar panels to power a farm on its item lists.

The bigger lever for most working farms is tax. Solar panels are special-rate plant, and most farms can deduct the whole cost in year one through the £1 million Annual Investment Allowance (AIA). On top of that, the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) pays you for surplus units you send back to the grid through NGED, turning summer overproduction on a dairy or sheep holding into income rather than waste. Our full breakdown of schemes sits on the farm solar grants and funding page, and how payback depends on how much of the output the farm uses itself is set out on the agricultural solar panel cost page.

Planning and grid in Devon

Devon carries more protected landscape than almost any English county: Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks, plus the North Devon, South Devon, Tamar Valley and East Devon Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs). That matters, but it matters less than many farmers fear. Rooftop solar on an existing agricultural building is normally permitted development under Class J — no capacity limit, no more than 0.2 m proud of a pitched roof, at least 1 m from the roof edge, and the council’s prior approval on design and glare above 50 kW — so a parlour roof, grain store or covered yard near Crediton or Newton Abbot can usually proceed without a full planning application. Listed buildings are excluded.

Ground-mount is where the protected landscapes bite. A field array within Dartmoor or Exmoor National Park, or inside one of the AONBs, will need a full planning application and almost certainly a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA), plus careful screening and siting. It is achievable, but the rooftop-first route is faster and cheaper, so it makes sense to exhaust roof space before looking at fields. On the grid side, every commercial array connects through National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED). Systems are notified under the G99 process; smaller installations may qualify for the simpler G98 route, while larger or export-heavy schemes need a formal G99 application and may require NGED to confirm available capacity at your point of connection. On more remote moorland holdings around Okehampton or Tavistock, that available capacity is the single biggest factor in how large you can go — so it pays to run the grid question early.

Typical Devon farm solar projects

The examples below are representative enterprise types and ranges, not specific named farms — they show the shape of a typical Devon project.

• A 200-cow dairy near Crediton: parlour, bulk tank and yard demand running through the day suits a 75-120 kWp rooftop array, with a large slice of the milking-day load covered by self-generation.

• A North Devon beef and sheep unit near Barnstaple: lower but steady demand across sheds and water systems fits a 30-60 kWp roof system, with summer surplus exported through NGED under SEG.

• A South Hams mixed and horticultural holding near Newton Abbot: packhouse refrigeration and irrigation pumps lift daytime demand, supporting a 50-100 kWp array, helped by the county’s high southern irradiance.

• A mid-Devon mixed farm near Tiverton: grain drying, workshop and general yard load justifies 40-90 kWp, with battery storage worth modelling to shift evening use.

SolarPanelsForFarms.uk is an independent guide, not an installer.SolarPanelsForFarms.uk is an independent guide, not an installer: send your details through the quote form and we will reply by email.

For costs by system size see what agricultural solar panels cost; for funding, farm solar grants and capital allowances; for the regional picture, farm solar by UK region.