Wiltshire Dairy switches on six-acre solar farm to power milk production and save £3.2 million in projected energy costs

Berkeley Farm Dairy switches on solar farm to cut energy costs and power milk production

Berkeley Farm Dairy in Wroughton, Wiltshire has switched on a six-acre ground-mounted solar PV array designed and installed by SolarSense, enabling the family-run dairy to generate its own renewable electricity and cut energy costs by nearly £88,000 per year.

The solar farm is forecast to generate more than 642,400 kWh of clean electricity annually, delivering approximately 136,410 kg of carbon savings each year while helping to protect the business from rising energy costs. Over the lifetime of the system, the dairy expects the project to deliver significant long-term financial and environmental benefits.

The investment follows the sharp rise in electricity prices in 2022, which prompted the Gosling family to explore on-site renewable energy to improve energy security and support the long-term sustainability of their milk processing operations. The farm has even greater expectations for what the installation can enable, says senior partner Ed Gosling, part of the family which has been producing and supplying Guernsey milk from the site since 1908.

The Gosling family were already committed to a low-carbon way of working – from electric delivery vans (now powered by solar energy) and organic milk supplied in reusable glass bottles, to permanent pastures that store enough carbon to help offset methane emissions from their 150 Guernsey cows. Producing around 250,000 litres of organic milk each week, the dairy sought new ways to power its energy-intensive milk processing operations.

Solar PV provided the solution, and the installation has already inspired the team to rethink how they use energy across the site to maximise the value of the electricity the 593kWp solar array will produce.

“We’re growing all the time, selling to shops and restaurants as well as directly to individual customers,” says Ed. “We used all the electricity the panels generated in January, but as daylight hours get longer and we have excess, we are reviewing our ways of working to see how we can best use it.”

“One example is cooling. We use a lot of energy for cooling our products and are now looking at pre-cooling 10,000 litres of water during the day using solar electricity, then using that chilled water for cooling milk at night when solar production is low, but processing continues.”

Russell Mees, Managing Director at SolarSense, added; “Food and drink producers are among the most energy-intensive businesses in the UK, and many are still feeling the impact of the 2022 energy price crisis. Projects like Berkeley Farm Dairy demonstrate how on-site solar generation can deliver long-term cost stability, improved energy security and meaningful carbon reduction in a single investment. We are seeing growing interest across the agricultural and food manufacturing sectors, where businesses are looking to future-proof operations against price volatility while strengthening their ESG and sustainability credentials.”

UK food and drink producers have been among the sectors most exposed to energy price volatility, due to the high electricity demand of refrigeration, processing and continuous production. In response, an increasing number of manufacturers and agricultural businesses are turning to on-site solar generation to secure long-term energy cost stability and improve operational resilience.

The Gosling family chose SolarSense following a competitive review of renewable energy specialists and were impressed by what the company had to say and the way they worked. The SolarSense team carried out detailed site surveys, optimised the solar farm design and supported the dairy through the full planning and installation process, providing ongoing maintenance support once the system was commissioned.

SolarSense is an award-winning, employee-owned renewable energy company based near Bristol, specialising in the design, installation and maintenance of solar PV, battery storage and solar carport projects across the UK. With more than 30 years of experience and certified B Corp status, the company is known for its high-quality engineering, long-term system performance and commitment to sustainability. In Wiltshire, SolarSense has also recently delivered one of the largest commercial solar installations in the region for leading food and drink producer apetito, installing more than 1,800 solar panels across multiple rooftops and solar carports.

“There were no downsides to this at all”, says Ed Gosling, except maybe that switch on. “That was a bit of an anti-climax,” he jokes. It wasn’t like switching on the Christmas lights which is what we’d all imagined. It was more a formal notification to say our panels were now active and producing energy. But we were incredibly happy the installation was up and running and we are really excited about the difference this will make to the future of the farm. We are expecting payback on the investment in year seven and savings across the 25-year lifetime of the solar panels of some £3.2 million.”

For more information, please see the Berkeley Farm Solar PV Case Study.