Solar Panels for Farms in Surrey

An independent guide to solar on farms in Surrey and the wider Surrey area, including London, Kent, Sussex: what it costs, the planning rules, the grid and the funding position, from official sources.

Agricultural solar panels in Surrey

Surrey is one of the most distinctive farming counties in the South East — less about broad arable acreage and more about the high-value, energy-hungry enterprises packed between the Surrey Hills and the M25. This is genuine horse country: livery yards, riding schools, competition stables and stud farms around Epsom, Dorking and Cranleigh run indoor arenas, automatic horse walkers, wash bays, water heating and floodlit menages that draw power right through the evening. Add the county’s smallholdings, free-range poultry and grazing units, plus a fast-growing wine industry — Denbies near Dorking is one of England’s largest single-estate vineyards — and you have a farming base whose electricity bills are stubbornly high and remarkably steady through daylight hours. That daytime load profile is exactly what makes farm solar pay so quickly here.

Surrey sits in a strong irradiance band for the UK, typically around 1,050–1,100 kWh per kWp each year, and most agricultural buildings — barns, stables, machinery sheds, packhouses and arena roofs — offer large, unshaded south-facing or east-west pitches. The local distribution network operator is UK Power Networks (UKPN), who manage every grid connection across Surrey and run the G98/G99 application process that governs how much you can export. Because so many Surrey holdings consume the bulk of their generation on site — chillers, pumps, heaters, EV chargers and arena lighting — self-consumption is high, which is the single biggest driver of return. 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. Payback on a well-matched system on a Surrey farm depends on how much of the output the farm uses itself, and the system then delivers two decades of near-free daytime power.

Farm solar across Surrey by district

Surrey’s farming character shifts noticeably from the chalk downs in the east to the greensand and heathland in the west. The table below shows the dominant enterprises and indicative system sizes for each part of the county.

These are indicative starting points — the right size for your holding comes from your half-hourly meter data, not a postcode average. A Guildford livery yard and a Reigate poultry unit can sit a mile apart and still need very different systems, because what matters is when you draw power, not how big your roof is. Full pricing, including the per-kWp breakdown and finance routes, is set out on our agricultural solar panel cost page.

Grants and tax relief for Surrey farms

Surrey farms are in England, where 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, with ground-based arrays excluded, but it closed to full applications 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. Separately, the 100% Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) lets most farm businesses deduct the entire cost of a qualifying solar installation against taxable profits in the year of purchase.

On the export side, the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) obliges licensed suppliers to pay you for surplus electricity sent back to the grid through your UKPN connection. For most Surrey equestrian and horticultural businesses the bigger prize is self-consumption rather than export — but SEG still monetises the summer surplus that a 40 kWp arena roof produces on a quiet July afternoon. The current status of each scheme is on our grants page; Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish schemes do not cover Surrey holdings.

Planning and grid in Surrey

Surrey is heavily designated, so planning awareness matters. The Surrey Hills National Landscape (AONB) covers a broad sweep of the county from Farnham across the Greensand Ridge and North Downs to the Kent border, and much of the wider countryside sits within the Metropolitan Green Belt. The good news for most farmers is that roof-mounted solar on existing agricultural buildings is normally permitted development under Class J (Part 14 of the GPDO 2015) — barns, stables, arenas and machinery sheds rarely need a full application, even inside the AONB: no capacity limit, panels no more than 0.2 m proud of a pitched roof and at least 1 m from the roof edge, the council’s prior approval on design and glare above 50 kW, and listed buildings excluded. Ground-mounted arrays in designated areas are different: within the Surrey Hills AONB or the Green Belt these almost always need full planning consent and careful landscape and visual assessment, so roof space is the place to start wherever the load allows.

On the grid side, every connection in Surrey runs through UK Power Networks (UKPN). Systems are notified or approved under the G98/G99 process — smaller installations (broadly up to 3.68 kW per phase) are notified after commissioning, while larger farm systems need a G99 application and approval before connection, with UKPN confirming how much you can export. The DNO submission can include an export limitation device to keep your connection within UKPN’s allowance.

Typical Surrey farm solar projects

Every Surrey holding is different, but most fall into a handful of recognisable patterns. These are representative enterprise ranges, not specific farms:

• Equestrian yards and riding schools (20–50 kWp): arena roofs and stable blocks carry the array, offsetting floodlighting, horse walkers, water heating and wash-bay power. Evening lighting load means a small battery often improves the economics.

• Vineyards and horticulture (25–55 kWp): packhouses, cold stores and glasshouse services run hard through the growing and harvest seasons, lining up well with peak solar output. Daytime self-consumption is high, which is what shortens payback.

• Poultry, livestock and mixed units (40–80 kWp): ventilation, lighting, feed systems and chilling create a flat, year-round daytime baseload — close to the ideal solar profile.

• Smallholdings and grazing enterprises (10–25 kWp): smaller barn or stable roofs cover farmhouse, workshop and EV-charging loads, with surplus exported under the Smart Export Guarantee. Modest outlay and simple G98/G99 notification.

Whatever your enterprise, start with your meter data and a structural survey so the system is sized to your actual load rather than your roof area. 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.