Solar Panels for Pig Farms, Farrowing Houses & Finishing Units

A typical commercial pig unit consuming 80,000-120,000 kWh per year can save £20,000-£35,000 annually with an appropriately sized solar installation. Farrowing houses with 24-hour heating and lighting requirements are the most energy-intensive buildings on a pig farm and show the strongest return on solar investment. With current electricity prices of 25-30p/kWh, a 100 kW system generating 90,000 kWh annually with 70% self-consumption saves around £16,000-£19,000 per year on electricity alone.

Modern steel-framed pig buildings with profiled metal or fibre cement roofing are ideal for solar panel installation. Corrugated box profile or sinusoidal steel sheets are the most common roof type on modern pig units and accept roof hooks or clamps directly without penetrating the waterproofing layer. Long-span flat roofs on conversion buildings may require ground mounts. Roofs with southerly to westerly orientation and a pitch of 15-35 degrees are optimal. We carry out a structural and orientation assessment on every site as part of our free survey.

Yes. Modern monocrystalline solar panels are encapsulated in tempered glass and sealed polymer backsheets that are resistant to the mildly corrosive atmosphere around pig buildings. We specify mounting hardware in grade 316 stainless steel or hot-dip galvanised steel rather than standard aluminium on sites with elevated ammonia levels. Inverters are housed away from the immediate building environment in ventilated weatherproof enclosures. Our installations on pig farms have operated for 10+ years without corrosion-related issues.

Solar panels are well suited to supplementing farrowing house heating during the day, but farrowing operations require 24-hour heat, which means battery storage or grid top-up is essential for overnight periods. A well-designed system with 50-100 kWh of battery storage can cover 70-80% of farrowing house heating energy from solar generation. The remaining 20-30% is covered by grid electricity during periods of low solar irradiance. This significantly reduces heating costs while maintaining the critical 24-28°C temperature requirements for piglet welfare.

Solar panel installations on pig farms are designed with biosecurity in mind. Our teams follow strict biosecurity protocols, including vehicle disinfection, protective clothing, and scheduling installation between batch movements to avoid contact with stock. All roof work is completed using scaffolding or elevated work platforms rather than roof walking, and we ensure all cable entries into livestock buildings are sealed against rodent and pest ingress. We can provide an installation method statement tailored to your unit's biosecurity requirements.

Roof-mounted solar panels on pig farm buildings typically fall under Class A Permitted Development rights for agricultural development, provided the building is not listed and the installation does not protrude more than 200mm from the roof plane. Larger systems above 1 MW require full planning permission. Ground-mounted arrays of less than 0.5 hectares on agricultural land are generally permitted under Schedule 2, Part 6 of the Town and Country Planning Order. We handle all planning queries and submissions as part of our project management service.