What would a 500 kWp array produce on a farm near Sutton?

Yes, and the figure matters more than the sunshine. At 847 kWh per kWp a year, a 500 kWp array on a Sutton holding models at around 424,000 kWh. What changes the answer is how much of that the farm uses itself. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

Which network operator handles the connection around Sutton?

Applications go to UK Power Networks, who run the network across Greater London. On a farm the incoming supply matters as much as their answer: a single phase supply caps what can be installed whatever the roof would take.

Solar panels for farms in Sutton

Around Sutton the constraint is rarely the roof. It is the incoming supply and what the network will accept back. What decides a farm scheme here is the state of the roof sheets and the incoming supply, which is why the survey looks at both before anyone sizes an array.

847 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 500 kWp array models at about 424,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

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Drawing Sutton unit

Roof 96 x 62 m

Array 500 kWp

Yield 424,000 kWh/yr

Scale 1:500 / Rev A / Greater London

Illustrative layout for a unit of this size. Your own figures come from the roof survey.

Sutton / Greater London

A modern steel framed agricultural building with its roof covered in solar panels, tractor and trailer in the yard, fields beyond — Industrial stock of the kind we survey across Greater London.

Agricultural rooftop solar across Greater London

What a farm roof near Sutton generates

Modelled irradiation at this latitude is 1087 kWh per square metre a year in the plane of a shallow-pitched roof, which works out at 847 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is about 4 percent below the mean across the areas we cover, so the case here rests on using the output on the holding rather than exporting it.

No solar scheme is recorded in this postcode district in the planning database. On a farm that usually means nothing has been built above the reporting threshold rather than that nothing has been built, because a roof array on a shed rarely appears in it.

FIG. 1 What a Sutton roof makes, month by month

Jul produces 6.6 times what Dec does on the same roof. A 500 kWp array here models at about 424,000 kWh across the year, but it arrives unevenly, which is why we size against your summer daytime load and then look at whether storage is worth adding for the shoulder months.

Monthly figures as a table

Month	kWh per kWp	500 kWp array
Jan	21	10,500
Feb	36	18,000
Mar	69	34,500
Apr	100	50,000
May	117	58,500
Jun	117	58,500
Jul	118	59,000
Aug	100	50,000
Sep	78	39,000
Oct	47	23,500
Nov	27	13,500
Dec	18	9,000

Source: EU PVGIS v5.2

FIG. 2 Sutton against the rest of Greater London

Wembley901
Hampstead900
Highgate900
Kentish Town900
Barnet899
Enfield898
Walthamstow898
Croydon895
Sutton847

Sutton ranks 50 of 50 towns we cover in Greater London on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 847 to 987, a spread of 140 kWh per kWp. On a 500 kWp array that is about 70,000 kWh a year between the strongest and weakest town in the county.

Bars are zero based, so length is proportional to the figure. Where a county is flat, that is the finding: location is not the lever, consumption is. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, modelled per town

Grid connection through UK Power Networks

Connections around Sutton are handled by UK Power Networks, which sets the export limit for the site. Above 3.68 kW per phase the connection runs under G99, so the export limit is agreed in advance rather than assumed. Where the local network is constrained, an export-limited connection usually still makes the scheme work, because a farm uses most of what the roof makes during the working day.

Book the survey

Send us the postcode

Tell us where the unit is and roughly how big the roof is. We come back with what it can carry, what it would generate against your consumption, and the three ways to pay for it.

Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges the survey and passes your details to our MCS-certified installation partner so they can quote.

Questions about solar in Sutton

What would a 500 kWp array produce on a farm near Sutton?: Yes, and the figure matters more than the sunshine. At 847 kWh per kWp a year, a 500 kWp array on a Sutton holding models at around 424,000 kWh. What changes the answer is how much of that the farm uses itself. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Which network operator handles the connection around Sutton?: Applications go to UK Power Networks, who run the network across Greater London. On a farm the incoming supply matters as much as their answer: a single phase supply caps what can be installed whatever the roof would take.