Solar panels for farms in Tonbridge
Around Tonbridge 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.
927 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 500 kWp array models at about 464,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in TonbridgeIllustrative layout for a unit of this size. Your own figures come from the roof survey.
Agricultural rooftop solar across Kent
What a farm roof near Tonbridge generates
Modelled irradiation at this latitude is 1189 kWh per square metre a year in the plane of a shallow-pitched roof, which works out at 927 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is around 5 percent above the mean across the areas we cover, which is as strong as UK farm rooftop gets outside the south coast.
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.
Most of the buildings we look at here sit in the TN postcode area.
Tonbridge and Malling is the planning authority for most holdings here, and it is the authority that decides whether an array on an agricultural building falls inside permitted development.
Tonbridge ranks 8 of 12 towns we cover in Kent on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 915 to 990, a spread of 75 kWh per kWp. On a 500 kWp array that is about 37,500 kWh a year between the strongest and weakest town in the county.
Grid connection through UK Power Networks
UK Power Networks is the network operator here, and their answer on export capacity shapes the design. Any commercial array above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99 rather than G98, and the application fixes what you are allowed to push back onto the network. If the local network is tight, limiting export rarely breaks the case here: most of the generation is consumed on site while the building is working.
Across Kent the planning database records 237 solar schemes totalling 2072 MW, of which 45 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
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 Tonbridge
- Is there enough sun around Tonbridge to make this work?
- Modelled at 927 kWh per kWp a year for a shallow-pitched roof at this latitude, which puts a 500 kWp array at roughly 464,000 kWh a year before shading. That array needs about 1,485 sqm of clear roof once ridge vents and walkways are allowed for. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
- Who do we apply to for export near Tonbridge?
- Only UK Power Networks can answer it for your connection, and on rural feeders the answer varies farm to farm. An export-limited offer usually still works, because a holding with grain drying, cooling or ventilation uses most of what it makes.
- Do we need planning permission in Tonbridge and Malling?
- In most cases no, because panels on the roof of an agricultural building usually sit within permitted development. The exceptions are listed buildings, conservation areas, protected landscapes and arrays that stand proud of the roof. We check with Tonbridge and Malling either way.