Ground-mounted solar panels

Ground-mounted solar panels are a benefit-rich alternative to the rooftop-mounted variety. You’ll just need around 20-30 sq m of space (for an average 3-bedroom home) – and a decent budget. At around £10,000-£15,000 per system, ground-mounted panels cost 25-35 per cent more than their roof-mounted counterparts.

So, are ground-mounted solar panels right for your UK home? To find out, we’ll walk you through what they are, how to install them and  their key benefits and drawbacks.

Ground-mounted solar panels are solar panels that are installed on the ground rather than on rooftops or other structures.

These panels are arranged in arrays on open land, such as gardens or fields, where there’s ample space for installation.

Because of the amount of land they require, ground-mounted solar panels are a common feature of large-scale solar energy projects, such as utility-scale solar farms or commercial solar installations. However, ground-mounted solar panels can also be used in residential settings – you’ll just need to ensure your home has sufficient land available without too many obstacles (such as large trees or neighbouring properties) that could block the sunlight.

Ground-mounted solar panels can also be paired with a solar battery, which stores the energy your array has generated so that you can draw upon it when energy prices are at their highest.

Before installing your ground-mounted solar array, you may require planning permission from your local council. You’ll find out whether you’ll need official consent to install your ground-mounted system later in the article.

You’ll also need to choose how you want to install your system. There are two options:

• Standard ground-mounting: this uses a racking system, whereby standard solar panels are fixed to a metal frame in a kind of “rack”.
• Pole mounting: solar panels are placed on a pole that elevates them higher off the ground compared to a standard racking system.

Standard ground-mounting is the more affordable option, but the added height of a pole-mounted solar panel protects the sun supply from shade, vegetation and ground-dwelling wildlife. Pole-mounted panels also take up less space than standard ground-mounted arrays and are easier to upgrade with devices such as automatic trackers, which help to maximise sun exposure by following the sun across the sky.

When it’s time to fit your ground-mounted solar panels, installers will first need to dig a trench – around 450mm deep – from the solar panels to your property. This is to fit the cable that will transmit power from your array to your home’s electricity supply. Prior to this step, it’s worth having a think about where the trench will need to be and considering any potential issues – such as tree roots – that could interfere with the excavation.

The team installing your ground-mounted solar panels will often lay a concrete foundation to stabilise your solar array, as well as mount an inverter (or micro-inverter), typically either under the array or on a nearby shed or wall. Inverters convert the direct current electricity that your solar panels generate into alternating current, the type of electricity homes and businesses run on.

Mounting your solar panels on the ground comes with a range of benefits, affecting your home’s energy supply and property’s aesthetics. 

Optimal sun exposure

With a ground-mounted solar system, you can position and orient your panels to maximise the amount of sunlight they receive each day.

Unlike rooftop installations, which are often limited by shading or the unalterable orientation of your home’s roof, you can place ground-mounted solar panels in the most sunlight-rich areas of your property. You can even tilt and angle them for more energy-efficient power production. A south-facing panel at an angle of 20-50 degrees is ideal.

Ground-mounted solar panels also offer greater flexibility in design and configuration compared to rooftop-mounted solar systems. Building ground-mounted solar panel support structures from scratch means you can customise them to fit the unique layout and topography of your garden.

Fewer space restrictions

When you mount solar panels on your home’s roof, you’re naturally limited by the amount of space on said roof.

With ground-mounted solar panels, however, this isn’t an issue. You can install ground-mounted solar arrays on larger plots of land to meet higher energy demands, which is one of the reasons these types of solar panels suit larger utility-scale projects. Instead of being restricted by the size of your roof, your only limit is the amount of suitable land you have, making ground-mounted panels a highly scalable solar solution.

Easier on the eye

Rooftop solar installations can significantly alter your home’s appearance, while ground-mounted systems can be integrated more seamlessly into the surrounding environment. You can position them to blend into the landscape or place them in areas where aesthetic considerations aren’t as much of an issue.

Simpler to inspect, clean and maintain

When it comes to maintenance, ground-mounted solar panels have one key advantage over their rooftop-based counterparts – you don’t have to climb onto a roof to access them.

Maintaining rooftop solar panels can be hazardous. In contrast, ground-mounted systems are far easier to inspect, clean and keep in good order.

Ground-mounted solar panels aren’t suitable for all sites.

So before deciding which sun-trapping setup is best for your home, consider the drawbacks of a ground-mounted solar system.

Environmental impacts

Installing ground-mounted solar panels may necessitate the removal of trees or vegetation. 

This, of course, can have damaging environmental implications, decreasing – albeit by a tiny amount – the planet’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. This potentially disrupts the local habitat and contributes to the climate crisis.

More vulnerable to damage, theft and vandalism

By the nature of their location, ground-mounted solar panels are more exposed to a range of factors than their rooftop-placed counterparts, including damage from wildlife, weather events, debris, vandalism and theft. Because of this, ground-mounted solar panels can incur extra costs to secure them from these threats.

Extra costs

Compared to rooftop panels, ground-mounted solar arrays can be more expensive to install. There are more materials and labour involved, such as mounting the structures, laying the foundations, running the cables and digging the trench.

All this means that when you opt for ground-mounted solar panels, the costs tend to quickly add up. The counter-argument, however – and one that we’ll explore at length below – is that ground-mounted solar panels, particularly pole-mounted ones with tracking systems, can increase your solar array’s output by between 20 and 35 per cent.

This means more solar cost savings over time and more electricity that you can sell back to the grid via the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) for a nice monthly cash injection.

They require a lot of space

Ground-mounted solar panel systems tend to take up a significant portion of land. Unlike rooftop installations, which can be added to roofs of any size, ground-mounted solar systems aren’t suitable for smaller properties, such as those in densely populated areas or where usable land is at a premium.

On that note, just how much space do ground-mounted solar panels require?

Earlier, we touched on how ground-mounted solar panels tend to be more expensive than roof-mounted varieties – specifically, around 25 to 35 per cent more.

But how much is that exactly?

Well, estimates place the cost of a typical ground-mounted solar array in the UK at between £10,000 and £15,000 (and that’s not even including installation). However, pole-mounted solar arrays (which, as we discussed earlier, provide optimal sun exposure) can also save you money – by as much as 25 percent, according to one source.

The Energy Savings Trust provides the following data about the costs – and cost savings – of a rooftop-mounted solar system. We’ve summarised the key numbers in the table below and added some new calculations of our own to give you an idea of the average costs of a ground-mounted system.

We’ve applied a 25 per cent markup to the costs of a roof-mounted system to account for the extra outlay involved with ground-mounted panels – as well as a separate 25 per cent increase to demonstrate the additional cost savings they offer – to compare the two types.

Depending on the size of your solar setup, a ground-mounted solar array can save you between £150.25 and £301 every year. This could be even more with a solar tracking system, but, owing to the extra costs and maintenance involved, they’re less appropriate for smaller, domestic ground-mounted solar arrays, so we haven’t included them in our calculations.

With a 3kW system, for example, you’ll recoup the extra outlay of a ground-mounted system (around £1,350) in under nine years. This time period holds at the other end of the scale, where it’ll also take fewer than nine years to recover the cost of a 7kW solar array. After that, it’s all savings – and, if you keep picking up those SEG payments, all profit.

What do ground-mounted solar panel costs include?

The estimated solar cost of a ground-mounted system – between £10,000 and £15,000 – includes the panels, inverter and meter. But depending on the provider, it may or may not include trench excavation and array installation. This latter cost, in particular, can be particularly prohibitive – as outlined above, it can total thousands of pounds – which is just one of the reasons it’s so crucial to compare the market before signing on any dotted lines.

Dive into our form to provide us with a few details about your ground-mounted solar panel requirements, and we’ll pair you with competitive quotes from leading solar panel suppliers in the UK. It’s completely free and takes just a minute of your time.

What additional ground-mounted solar panel costs are involved?

There are other factors that affect how much you’ll pay for a ground-mounted solar array in the UK. Add-ons will, naturally, increase the cost. A tracking system, for instance – technology that allows your ground-mounted solar panels to “track” the sun across the sky and pivot to maximise the energy of its rays accordingly – can cost an extra £2,500.

When it comes to obtaining official permission to install your solar setup, ground-mounted panels tend to be a bit more difficult to get permission for than rooftop-based ones.

The bottom line with ground-mounted solar panels is that whether you’ll need planning permission depends on the size and scale of your setup.

Your domestic ground-mounted solar installation won’t require planning permission, providing:

• It doesn’t exceed a 9 sq m area;
• It’s at least 5m from any boundaries;
• It’s no higher than 4m; and
• It’s not in a World Heritage site or conservation area (if it is, your installation is not permitted to be visible from the road).

It’s also important to bear in mind that UK regulations state that domestic sites are only allowed to have one standalone ground-mounted system without requiring planning permission. If you want more, you’ll need official approval.

Plus, it’s worth noting that 9 sq m – the permitted maximum space for a ground-mounted domestic solar site in the UK – is only the equivalent of around four or five panels. Since you’d need at least 10 panels to power an average three-bedroom home, most ground-mounted solar panels large enough to be worthwhile installing – and to make financial sense – will need planning permission.