Solar's Land Problem: Why 382 Square Kilometres Can't Match 1.75

Hinkley Point C sits on 175 hectares of Somerset coastline. When complete, it will generate 26 terawatt-hours of electricity per year.

To generate the same amount of electricity from solar panels in Britain’s climate, you’d need approximately 66,825 hectares. That’s 668 square kilometres. 382 times more land.

This isn’t a theoretical problem. It’s happening now, across England’s most productive farmland.

The Land Use Numbers

The comparison between nuclear and solar land requirements depends on two factors: capacity (how much you can install) and capacity factor (how much you actually generate).

Nuclear: Hinkley Point C

• Site area: 175 hectares (1.75 km²)
• Installed capacity: 3.2 GW
• Capacity factor: ~90% (runs nearly all the time)
• Annual generation: 26 TWh
• Land efficiency: 54.7 hectares per installed GW

Solar: UK Average

• Land per MW: 2.25 hectares median (range: 1.88-2.7 ha)
• Capacity factor: ~10% (limited by weather, daylight)
• Land efficiency: 2,250 hectares per installed GW

To match Hinkley Point C’s 26 TWh annual output, you’d need:

• Installed solar capacity: 29.7 GW (accounting for 10% vs 90% capacity factor)
• Land required: 66,825 hectares = 668 km²
• Comparison: 382× more land than Hinkley Point C

Even comparing raw installed capacity (ignoring capacity factors), solar requires 41 times more land per GW than nuclear.

Our World in Data synthesises global research: “Nuclear is the most land-efficient source, requiring 50-times less land compared to coal; and 18 to 27-times less than on-ground solar PV.”

How Much Land Are We Talking About?

Context matters. Is this land use a problem in practice?

Current UK Solar Coverage

As of September 2024, ground-mounted solar panels cover approximately 21,200 hectares of UK land—about 0.1% of total land area. That’s less than golf courses (1,256 km²) or airports (493 km²).

The UK has approximately 16 GW of solar capacity. The government’s target is 70 GW by 2035, a 4.4-fold increase.

If ground-mounted solar scales proportionally:

• Additional land needed: ~72,000 hectares (720 km²)
• Total solar coverage: ~0.3% of UK land

That doesn’t sound like much. So what’s the problem?

The Problem: It’s Agricultural Land

In isolation, 0.3% of UK land isn’t concerning. The problem is which 0.3%.

CPRE Research: Solar Farms on Productive Farmland

The Campaign to Protect Rural England analysed 38 large solar farms (over 30MW each) in operation. Key findings:

• 59% are located on productive farmland
• 31% of the area they cover is classified as “best and most versatile” (BMV) agricultural land
• 827 hectares of BMV land covered in total, including:
  • 45 hectares of Grade 1 (“excellent”)
  • 216 hectares of Grade 2 (“very good”)
  • 566 hectares of Grade 3a (“good”)

Three operational solar farms occupy entirely BMV land:

• Sutton Bridge (Lincolnshire)
• Goosehall (East Cambridgeshire)
• Black Peak Farm (South Cambridgeshire)

Cleve Hill: Britain’s Largest Solar Farm

The UK’s largest solar installation, Cleve Hill Solar Park in Kent, generates 373 MW from 360 hectares (900 acres). It covers marshland rather than prime farmland, but the scale illustrates the land requirement: nearly 1 hectare per MW.

To meet the 70 GW target using Cleve Hill’s land intensity would require approximately 75,000 hectares—larger than the entire county of Bedfordshire.

Food Security vs Energy Security

In May 2024, Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho told Parliament that “with growing geopolitical tension, the best agricultural land must be protected for food security”.

The government now requires large solar projects to avoid BMV land where possible, prioritising brownfield sites, contaminated land, and lower-quality agricultural land.

The Carbon Brief Counterargument

Carbon Brief’s fact-check argues solar poses little threat to food security:

“Even if all 700 km² of future solar replaced wheat production, this would account for just 4% of the UK’s annual wheat yield. Government research identifies climate change, not solar power, as the primary threat to domestic food supply.”

Fair points. But this analysis assumes:

1. Solar will be distributed evenly across all farmland types (CPRE data shows it concentrates on better land)
2. The only question is total agricultural output (local impacts, farm viability, and rural character matter too)
3. Solar and food production are mutually exclusive (they might not be—more on this below)

The Mitigation: Agrivoltaics

What if solar farms didn’t replace agriculture, but coexisted with it?

Sheep Grazing Under Panels

Sheep grazing is already common on UK solar farms. Lightsource bp reports sheep are “natural grazers, making them an environmentally friendly and cost-effective alternative to manual, chemical, or mechanical vegetation control.”

A 2023 study found sheep grazing in fields with ground-mounted solar installations were “generally healthier and more content than those in open fields,” with panels providing shade and shelter.

Farmers Weekly reports on Fenton Home Farm in Wales, where 300 breeding ewes graze under a 47MW solar installation. The farmer receives lease income while maintaining livestock production—a “triple-win” of energy, grazing income, and agricultural products.

Crop Production Under Panels

The evidence is more limited for crops, but emerging research is promising.

University of Sheffield research (March 2025) found that “certain crops, such as maize, Swiss chard and beans, thrived under the partial shade provided by solar panels.”

International studies suggest crop yields can rise under solar panels, with water usage decreasing due to reduced evaporation. Research findings vary by crop and location, but several trials have shown yield increases.

The Caveat

These are promising results, but UK research is sparse. Most agrivoltaic studies come from continental Europe and the US, where solar intensity and farm economics differ.

As the University of Sheffield notes, “research on agrivoltaics is extensive in mainland Europe, but very little has been done in the UK.”

Rooftop Solar: The Untapped Resource

There’s another solution that uses zero additional land: rooftops.

The UK has over 1.2 million homes with solar PV installed as of December 2023. In 2023 alone, over 160,000 domestic installations were added—the highest annual figure since 2015.

But rooftop solar remains a small fraction of total capacity. Commercial buildings, warehouses, schools, car parks, and industrial facilities represent vast untapped potential.

Why isn’t more solar on rooftops?

1. Installation complexity: Rooftop solar is more expensive per MW than ground-mounted arrays
2. Structural constraints: Many buildings can’t support panel weight
3. Lease economics: Farmers can earn more leasing land for solar than grazing livestock
4. Grid connections: Rural fields are often easier to connect than urban rooftops

The government offers £15-25 million in grants for farmers and VAT exemptions on residential installations through March 2027. But the economic case for ground-mounted solar on farmland remains strong.

Nuclear’s Land Efficiency in Context

Returning to Hinkley Point C: 175 hectares for 26 TWh annually.

For comparison:

• Sizewell C (also 3.2 GW, under construction): 32 hectares core site
• All UK nuclear sites combined: Generated 40.6 TWh in 2023 from ~1,000 hectares total

Nuclear’s land efficiency comes from energy density. Uranium-235 contains 2 to 3 million times the energy equivalent of coal per kilogram, and far more than can be captured from sunlight per square metre in Britain’s climate.

The Mining Objection

Critics note this comparison “conveniently ignores the very large land footprint of the mines that produce the fuels for nuclear plants.”

Fair point. Our World in Data’s analysis includes fuel extraction and supply chain impacts in lifecycle assessments, and nuclear still emerges as 18-27× more land-efficient than solar.

Uranium mining does disturb land, but:

1. Uranium’s energy density means relatively small mining operations supply vast amounts of fuel
2. Modern mines can be rehabilitated post-closure
3. Solar panel manufacturing requires mining for silicon, silver, copper, and rare earths—also with environmental impacts

Neither technology has zero mining footprint. The question is which minimises total land disruption per unit energy.

The Trade-Off

Land use isn’t the only factor in energy choices. If it were, we’d cover Britain in nuclear plants and be done.

Solar’s advantages:

• Modularity: Can be deployed incrementally, on rooftops, car parks, brownfield sites
• Speed: Faster to build than nuclear plants
• Cost: Lower upfront capital costs (though storage adds significantly)
• Zero carbon in operation: Like nuclear, produces no direct emissions
• Public acceptance: Less controversial than nuclear in many communities

Nuclear’s advantages:

• Land efficiency: 18-382× less land per TWh (depending on calculation)
• Reliability: 90% capacity factor vs 10% for solar
• Energy density: Operates 24/7 regardless of weather
• Lifespan: 60-80 years vs 25-30 years for solar panels
• Minimal storage requirement: Provides baseload power directly

Britain needs both. The question is the ratio, and the location.

The Honest Assessment

Is solar’s land use a crisis? No. Current solar coverage (0.1% of UK land) is negligible.

Will solar expansion create agricultural conflicts? Yes, if we continue building predominantly on farmland. CPRE’s finding that 59% of large solar farms occupy productive farmland suggests market forces drive developers toward agricultural land, despite policy preferences for brownfield sites.

Is nuclear more land-efficient? Dramatically so. By every credible analysis, nuclear requires 18-382× less land per unit energy, depending on whether you compare raw capacity or actual generation.

Does this mean we should stop building solar? No. Rooftop solar, brownfield deployment, and agrivoltaic systems can expand solar capacity without significant agricultural impact. What it means is that location matters.

The Policy Question

When Claire Coutinho told Parliament that BMV land must be protected for food security, she was acknowledging a real trade-off.

If Britain scales solar to 70 GW primarily through ground-mounted arrays on farmland, that’s approximately 75,000 hectares of agricultural land repurposed for energy. If concentrated on BMV land (as CPRE’s data suggests developers prefer), that’s a meaningful loss of productive capacity.

If instead we:

1. Prioritise rooftop and brownfield deployment where feasible
2. Require agrivoltaic design (sheep grazing minimum, crop production where proven) for farmland installations
3. Reserve land-intensive solar for genuinely lower-grade land
4. Build more nuclear for baseload power where land efficiency matters most

…then solar can scale without agricultural conflict.

The land comparison between nuclear and solar isn’t an argument against solar. It’s an argument for honesty about the trade-offs, and for locating technologies where their strengths and weaknesses matter most.

382 square kilometres versus 1.75 isn’t a rounding error. It’s a fundamental difference in land intensity that policy should acknowledge.

Further Reading

• Our World in Data: Land Use Per Energy Source
• UK Government: Land Utilised by Solar PV (September 2024)
• CPRE: Two-Thirds of Mega Solar Farms Built on Productive Farmland
• Carbon Brief Fact-check: Is Solar Power a Threat to UK Farmland?
• University of Sheffield: Solar Technology Could Meet UK’s Electricity Needs Without Sacrificing Farmland

Data current as of November 2025. All figures cited with sources. Corrections and updates welcomed at hello@hostile.eco.