Solar Panels for Farms in Leicestershire

An independent guide to solar on farms in Leicestershire and the wider Leicestershire area, including Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire: what it costs, the planning rules, the grid and the funding position, from official sources.

Agricultural solar panels in Leicestershire

Leicestershire sits at the agricultural crossroads of the East Midlands, and its farming is as mixed as any county in England. The arable belt around Market Harborough and the Welland valley grows wheat, oilseed rape and field beans on heavy clay loams, while the rolling pasture of the Wreake valley and the country around Melton Mowbray carries the dairy herds that supply the Stilton creameries and Melton’s pork-pie trade. To the north and west, the National Forest and the wooded uplands of Charnwood frame a landscape of sheep, beef and the historic hunt country around the Quorn — grassland farms with high winter housing loads and reliable summer grazing. This breadth of enterprise is exactly why solar pays here: a county where grain dryers, milking parlours, refrigeration and feed systems all draw heavily from the grid is a county where on-site generation displaces expensive imported electricity at the point it is used.

The economics are straightforward once you read a farm’s half-hourly meter data. Across Leicestershire the local distribution network operator is National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED, East Midlands) — the former Western Power East Midlands network — and rising standing and unit charges have pushed many farm businesses well past the point where a roof full of panels makes obvious sense. The county’s irradiance, at roughly 1,000–1,050 kWh per kWp installed each year, is typical of the Midlands and entirely sufficient: a well-oriented agricultural array generates the great bulk of its output between March and October, when grain drying, ventilation, cooling and irrigation demand peak. For reference, 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 (including VAT where charged, excluding batteries), and payback depends on how much of the output the farm uses itself. You can see the full breakdown on our agricultural solar panel cost page.

Land rent and self-generation are different businesses — per-acre solar lease rates for 2026.

Farm solar across Leicestershire by district

Leicestershire’s enterprises vary sharply by district, and so do the systems that suit them. The table below shows representative configurations for the county’s main farming areas — every project is sized from your actual consumption, not a rule of thumb.

Grants and tax relief for Leicestershire farms

Leicestershire farms are in England, so the funding picture is the English one — there is no Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish scheme on the table here, and no grant for solar panels on farms is open. Round 2 of the Improving Farm Productivity (IFP) grant paid up to 25% of eligible costs — for solar, £15,000 minimum to £100,000 maximum — for panels on farm-building rooftops or irrigation reservoirs only, not ground-based arrays; full applications closed on 31 July 2025 and no further round has been announced. The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2026 window closed at midday on 12 May 2026, and its 2023–2026 item lists did not include solar panels to power a farm; Capital Grants 2026 and the Sustainable Farming Incentive have no solar items.

The reliable saving for most farms is tax-based. Solar panels are special-rate plant, and most farm businesses can deduct the whole cost in year one through the £1 million Annual Investment Allowance (AIA); a partnership with a company as a member cannot claim it, and a public grant reduces the cost you can claim on. On the income side, the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) pays you for surplus units exported to the grid, at a rate each licensed supplier sets, which matters on dairy and arable holdings whose generation peaks in summer when on-farm demand is lower. Our grants page walks through the grant status, AIA and SEG for a typical Leicestershire farm.

Planning and grid in Leicestershire

For the overwhelming majority of Leicestershire farms, planning is not an obstacle. Roof-mounted solar on an existing agricultural building is generally permitted development, so a system on a grain store, dairy parlour, livestock shed or packhouse roof can usually proceed without a full planning application. Leicestershire has no National Park within its boundary, but it does contain genuinely sensitive landscapes: the National Forest across the north-west and the rolling, partly designated country of Charnwood, where the historic landscape and hunt-country setting carry weight with planners. Ground-mounted arrays — and any rooftop scheme on a listed building, which is excluded from permitted development — will need consent, and in or near the National Forest and Charnwood an early conversation with Leicestershire County Council and the relevant district authority before designing the array is worthwhile.

On the grid side, the connecting network is National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED, East Midlands). Almost every farm system above a small domestic scale connects under the G99 process, with NGED reviewing the application against local network capacity. Some rural feeders in the more remote parts of the county — around the National Forest fringe and the upland edges of Charnwood — have limited headroom, which can shape how much you can export. The installer normally handles the full G99 application, designing the system to fit the connection you can realistically obtain, and where export is constrained, battery storage can capture surplus generation rather than waste it.

Typical Leicestershire farm solar projects

Rather than fabricate a named case study, here is what genuinely representative Leicestershire projects tend to look like by enterprise type. Your own figures will depend on your meter data, roof orientation and how much of your demand falls in daylight hours.

Wreake-valley dairy (Melton area): A milking herd with a parlour, bulk tank refrigeration and water heating typically suits a 50–150kW roof array across the parlour and adjoining sheds. Cooling and washdown demand tracks daylight closely, so self-consumption is high.

Welland-valley arable (Market Harborough area): A combinable-crops holding with a grain store and dryer carries a sharp late-summer load that coincides with peak generation. An 80–250kW grain-store roof system, sometimes paired with storage, slashes drying-season import costs.

Charnwood & National Forest livestock (Loughborough/Coalville area): Beef and sheep holdings with winter housing, ventilation and lighting suit 30–120kW barn-roof arrays. Summer self-consumption is lower than on dairy units, so SEG export and a modest battery improve returns.

Leicester-fringe horticulture & processing: Market gardens, packhouses and on-farm cold stores carry steady, high daytime loads ideal for 100–300kW systems on large packhouse roofs, where near-total self-consumption works in their favour.

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.