Solar & Battery Funding in England

As of July 2026 there is no open grant in England that directly funds farm-scale solar PV or battery storage. Many websites still describe farm solar grants as available. They are not, and it's worth knowing exactly where things stand.

Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF): the 2026 round closed on 12 May 2026, and it never included solar PV or batteries on its eligible items list. Defra has confirmed it was the final FETF round in its current form.

Improving Farm Productivity grant: the last English scheme that did fund rooftop solar and batteries (grants of £15,000 to £100,000). Round 2 closed on 31 July 2025 and no further round has been announced.

What that means in practice: the case for farm solar in England currently rests on the economics, which are strong on their own. Replacing generator run-hours and bought-in electricity typically delivers payback measured in a few years, and on heavy diesel users it can be under two. Tax relief (below) improves it further.

For a farm or rural business, up to 100% of a solar and battery system can usually be written off against tax in the year of purchase.

Annual Investment Allowance: a 100% first-year deduction on up to £1m of plant and machinery per year, available to companies, sole traders and partnerships, and it covers solar panels and battery storage. For nearly all farm-scale systems this covers the whole project.

Beyond the AIA: companies get a 50% first-year allowance on special-rate assets such as solar panels, and from 1 January 2026 a new 40% first-year allowance applies to main-rate plant for both incorporated and unincorporated businesses.

Depending on your structure and rate, that's tax relief worth roughly a quarter to nearly half of the system cost in year one. Speak to your accountant before the install is invoiced so the claim lands in the right year. This is general information, not tax advice.

Defra has confirmed that the whole English farm grants offer is being revamped for 2027, replacing FETF. Whether energy equipment such as solar and batteries will be included is not yet known, but this is the single most important thing for English farms to watch.

We monitor the official announcements weekly. Join our funding alerts (on the Grant Checker page) and we'll email you the day details are published, so you can plan a project around the application window rather than finding out after it closes.

Installation of solar panels and battery storage in homes is zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027, after which the rate rises to 5%. This includes off-grid homes, standalone batteries and batteries retrofitted to existing systems.

It does not apply to farm or commercial buildings, where standard 20% VAT applies (recoverable if the business is VAT registered).

If a home or smallholding system is on your plans, installing before the deadline is a genuine, dated saving with no application process at all: the zero rate is applied directly on the invoice.

The Government's Warm Homes Plan runs to 2029/30 and explicitly includes rooftop solar and home battery storage, with a target of solar on up to 3 million additional homes by 2030.

Available now: the Warm Homes: Local Grant funds improvements including solar for lower-income households in England, delivered through councils.

Coming: a Warm Homes Fund with £1.7bn earmarked for low and zero-interest consumer loans, expected to become the main financing route for domestic solar and batteries. Details and launch date are still awaited. We track this weekly and our funding alerts will cover the launch.

ECO4 obliges larger energy suppliers to fund energy efficiency improvements for lower-income households living in homes rated EPC D to G. Solar PV can be included where a whole-house retrofit assessment supports it.

Eligibility is means-tested and the scheme has been extended to 31 December 2026. If you think you may qualify, check with your energy supplier or local authority.

The Smart Export Guarantee pays for electricity exported to the grid from certified installations in Great Britain, with the better open tariffs paying around 12p to 16p per kWh as of July 2026.

We include it here for completeness and honesty: a true off-grid system has no grid connection, so there is nothing to export and the SEG does not apply. Every kilowatt-hour you generate is yours. If your project is grid-tied rather than off-grid, the SEG matters, and we can point you to a trusted grid-tied installer partner.