120 kW Cotswolds mixed farm — workshop and grain store

Client: 650-acre mixed arable and sheep farm Location: Cotswolds (Gloucestershire) Vertical: Farm Workshops System size: 120 kW across workshop and grain store Annual generation: 110,000 kWh Annual saving: £24,500 Simple payback: 6.7 years

A 650-acre mixed arable and sheep farm in the Cotswolds AONB, running cereals on the heavier ground and sheep finishing on the lighter chalk grassland. Multiple farm buildings — main grain store, machinery workshop, hay barn, fleet shed, two open-front livestock houses. Annual electricity spend before install: £36,000 across grain drying (seasonal), workshop tools (compressors, welding, refurbishment work), and farmhouse-adjacent farmyard loads.

120 kW rooftop PV split 70 kW on the machinery workshop and 50 kW on the grain store. 220 modules in total, two string inverters, single G99 application covering both buildings on the same DNO supply. Cotswolds AONB designation required a 6-week planning consultation but no formal planning permission — Class A Part 14 GPDO permitted development applied.

First-year generation 110,000 kWh against modelled 112,000 kWh. Self-consumption averages 52% — high during grain drying season (October–November), lower during summer when workshop activity is moderate. The remainder exports under SEG at 10.5p/kWh. The farmer is exploring fleet electrification (a Polaris Ranger EV is on order; a Maxus eDeliver for parts and feed runs is being considered) which will lift on-site self-consumption further over the next 2–3 years.

Annual savings of approximately £24,500 in year one. Simple payback at 6.7 years; 100% AIA applied year one. The farm is on a long-term tenancy with a Cotswolds estate — the install was the first under a newly standardised tenant-PV addendum that the estate has now rolled out across its wider tenanted portfolio.