Bromsgrove-area farm: roof survey for a 90,000 kWh/year solar PV install

The problem: a 90,000 kWh/yr farm watching its energy bills climb

The brief from the farmer was simple and familiar across UK agriculture right now: the business is using around 90,000 kWh of electricity a year, and the bill for that energy keeps moving in the wrong direction. Livestock farms in particular run a near-constant baseload — lighting, water pumping, refrigeration, ventilation, milking equipment, workshop tools — so there is no easy lever to pull on consumption itself. The question the owner wanted answered was whether the farm's own roofs could carry a solar PV system big enough to meaningfully offset that demand.

That is a textbook fit for on-site generation. A daytime-heavy load profile on a rural site with large, unshaded agricultural roof spans is exactly the shape of farm that gets the best return from solar PV under current UK conditions.

What KMM did on site

Our engineer drove out to the farm to physically look at the roof rather than rely on aerial imagery alone. A site visit on a working farm covers more than just the roof pitch and orientation — it is also the moment we meet the people, the operation, and (on this particular day) the livestock. Our surveyor recorded the visit on the way in, noting the herd of Highland cattle on the approach to the buildings: "I just had to stop and say hello to my furry friends here. These are Highland cattle and they're absolutely gorgeous."

That kind of moment matters more than it sounds. A farm install is not a transactional sale — it is a long-term piece of infrastructure on someone's home and business. Walking the yard, meeting the animals and having a proper conversation with the owner is how we make sure the design we eventually propose actually fits the operation, not just the roof drawing.

The consultancy-led approach: friendly chat first, numbers second

KMM does not lead with a quote. We lead with a conversation. As our engineer put it on the day: "If you want us to come and have a chat with you about your ever-increasing energy costs, why not give us a bell and one of us will come out and have a friendly chat with you and see if we can take the sting out of your energy bills."

For a 90,000 kWh/yr farm that means working through the realistic levers before committing to a system size:

• What proportion of that 90,000 kWh is daytime load that solar can actually displace?
• How much usable roof do we have once we strip out shading, north-facing pitches and any structural limits?
• Is battery storage worth adding to push more solar into evening/early-morning use?
• What does the export picture look like via the local DNO (NGED in this region) once a generation figure is on the table?
• What's the right finance route — cash, AIA-leveraged purchase, or asset finance — against the owner's wider tax position?

None of those answers come from a desk. They come from being on the roof, in the yard, and in the kitchen with a coffee.

Why this matters for other UK farms

If your farm is using anywhere near 90,000 kWh a year, you are in the band where on-roof solar tends to make the strongest commercial case in 2026: high baseload, large roof inventory, rural single-phase or three-phase supply that benefits from on-site generation, and a tax position that often allows the system to be written down using the Annual Investment Allowance. The first step is never a quote — it is somebody standing on your yard, looking at the actual roof, and being honest about what's possible.

That is what this Bromsgrove visit was: KMM on site, roof reviewed, conversation opened, and an honest path to cutting the bill mapped out from there.