Solar Panels for Farms in Pembrokeshire

An independent guide to solar on farms in Pembrokeshire and the wider Pembrokeshire area, including Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion: what it costs, the planning rules, the grid and the funding position, from official sources.

Agricultural solar panels in Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire is one of Wales’ most intensively farmed counties, and almost every enterprise here runs the kind of round-the-clock electrical load that solar pays back fastest against. The county’s dairy herds dominate the inland plateau around Haverfordwest and Narberth, where parlours, bulk-milk tank refrigeration and vacuum pumps draw power day and night. Beef and sheep finishing units sit alongside them, and the famous Pembrokeshire Earlies — the early new potatoes lifted from the mild, free-draining red soils of the south coast — bring grading sheds, cold stores and irrigation pumps that all run hardest in the long-daylight spring and summer months. That seasonal pattern matters: when a Pembrokeshire potato store or dairy is pulling its heaviest load between April and September, a rooftop array is generating at full tilt, so a high share of every kilowatt-hour is used on site rather than exported.

Pembrokeshire enjoys some of the best solar irradiance in Wales. Its far south-westerly position and maritime climate deliver roughly 1,050–1,100 kWh per kWp installed each year — comfortably ahead of the Welsh average and close to the figures seen in the south of England. The local distribution network is run by National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED, South Wales), the operator you will deal with for any grid connection or export agreement, and most farm-scale connections proceed under the standard G99 process. With commercial electricity still costing 28–34p per unit, the payback on a well-sized agricultural array in Pembrokeshire depends on how much of the output the farm uses itself — our cost guide shows the arithmetic — and the array then delivers two decades of low-cost generation against rising grid prices.

Farm solar across Pembrokeshire by district

Pembrokeshire’s farming character changes markedly from the dairy interior to the early-potato coast and the upland edges near the Preseli Hills. The table below shows the typical pattern by district.

These ranges assume rooftop mounting on existing agricultural buildings with the generation matched to genuine on-site demand. Payback depends on how much of the output the farm uses itself: dairy and potato-storage enterprises with strong daytime and summer loads use more of it; upland sheep and beef units with lighter, more seasonal demand use less.

Grants and tax relief for Pembrokeshire farms

Pembrokeshire is in Wales, so the funding landscape is different from England — there is no FETF here. The position for a Pembrokeshire farm:

• No Welsh grant for solar panels — the Farm Business Grant and Sustainable Production Grant closed with the 2014–2020 programme, and Small Grants – Efficiency and its successor, Capital Production and Efficiency (open 28 July 2026 to March 2027), list only a solar-powered fencing energiser and a solar-powered livestock water pump.
• Sustainable Agriculture Loan Scheme — a one-year pilot from the Development Bank of Wales, from 1 July 2026, lending £25,001 to £1 million at a fixed 3% for renewable energy generation for on-farm use.
• Annual Investment Allowance (100%) — solar PV qualifies as plant and machinery, so the full capital cost can be written off against taxable farm profits in the year of installation, materially shortening the net payback.
• Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) — payment from your electricity supplier for surplus generation exported to the grid, which is common for dairy and potato farms generating heavily in summer when daytime demand dips.

With no Welsh grant for panels, the 100% AIA write-down and on-farm use of the output are what drive payback. There is more detail on our farm solar grants and funding page.

Planning and grid in Pembrokeshire

The dominant landscape constraint here is the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, the only wholly coastal national park in the UK, which wraps the south and west of the county from Tenby round to Fishguard and St Davids. Much of the inland farming heartland around Haverfordwest and Narberth lies outside the park boundary, which is where the bulk of straightforward projects sit.

For most farms the planning position is favourable. Rooftop solar on existing agricultural buildings is normally permitted development in Wales under Part 43 of the Welsh GPDO — no capacity limit and no prior approval, provided panels stand no more than 20 cm proud and at least 1 m from the edge — so a parlour roof or grain-store array outside the National Park rarely needs a full application. Inside the National Park, or on a listed building, the bar is higher and rooftop schemes need to be designed sympathetically — panel colour, frame setback and visibility from the coast path all come into play. Ground-mounted arrays in any designated area normally require planning consent and a landscape and visual assessment, so ground-mount proposals are best steered toward unconstrained land away from the park where possible.

On the grid side, your distribution network operator is National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED, South Wales). Connections up to the standard threshold proceed under the G99 fast-track process; larger arrays may need a formal connection application and, in some rural parts of the county where the network is constrained, an export limitation device to keep within the available capacity.

Typical Pembrokeshire farm solar projects

The figures below are representative ranges for the enterprise types found across Pembrokeshire — not single named farms. For a cost benchmark, DESNZ 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 and excluding batteries.

• Dairy parlour, Haverfordwest belt (60–120 kWp): parlour, refrigeration and vacuum-pump load runs steadily through the day, giving very high self-consumption.

• Early-potato grading and cold store, south coast (80–200 kWp): grading, washing and chilled storage peak in the long-daylight spring and summer exactly as the array generates hardest. Strong summer load with SEG income on shoulder days.

• Beef and sheep unit, Pembroke or Fishguard (25–70 kWp): lighter, more seasonal demand across livestock buildings, often paired with a battery to capture evening and winter use.

• Mixed arable and machinery farm, inland Pembrokeshire (40–100 kWp): workshop, drying and handling load spread across the year, with surplus exported under SEG.

Every Pembrokeshire project should begin with half-hourly meter data analysis and a structural survey before any panel is specified, so the system is sized to your real consumption rather than a generic template. For pricing by system size and the payback arithmetic, see our guide to agricultural solar panel costs. SolarPanelsForFarms.uk is an independent guide, not an installer: an enquiry goes to a matched MCS-certified installer covering the area, which returns a desk feasibility within 3 working days.

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.