Solar Manager’s UK Solar Landholding Benchmark

Land-related costs can be up to 25% of the Opex for a solar asset, depending on geography. They’re one of the first pieces of the puzzle to solve for developers building assets, and one of the last pieces of the puzzle to revisit for asset owners and managers.  

But it’s a cost-line worth revisiting once in a while. Especially if you’re high up on the costs and low on the utilization density scale. As an asset owner, you might have options. There might be room for negotiations with landowners or lease terminations, or it might force a consideration for more effective land utilisation (e.g., dual-use agrivoltaics applications, co-located BESS). 

So what does the UK land utilisation curve look like?

New sites need less and less space per MW and technology evolves

The average solar farm land utilization in the UK is 5.5 acres/MW, but this has been evolving since the first sites were built.

Sites built in 2012/13/14 were on average 6.5 acres/MW. From 2014 to 2019, the average was 5.5 acres/MW. From 2020 onwards, the average has been ~4.5 acres/MW. These jumps track changing technology: the bifacial boom and significant advances in panel efficiency.    

Interested in the analysis? Get in touch. There are still opportunities to optimise your landholding situation from land shrinkwrapping to agrivoltaics.