Chicken farmer Willie Lean said installing solar panels was “a no-brainer” after he saved £800 on his first monthly electricity bill after fitting them.
The Cawdor farmer had more than 200 panels installed on poultry sheds to generate 50 kilowatts (kW) of electricity, and said he had been amazed by the results.
Mr Lean spent £68,000 on the photovoltaic system and said he was confident the UK Government’s Feed-in Tariff (FiT) subsidy would at least repay that sum over 25 years.
He added: “The FiT payments are fixed for 25 years and when I looked at our circumstances it was a no-brainer. I had been considering solar panels for a while and when I first looked into it was quoted £148,000. The price has obviously come down a lot since then, making it a lot more accessible for everyone.”
Mr Lean said the panels still produced electricity on cloudy days but recent good weather was “when they really come into their own”. He had considered a small wind turbine at his farm but decided against it, saying: “I looked at a 50kW wind turbine but it would have been seen for miles around. The solar panels can only be seen if a plane is passing overhead.
“They are not intrusive and you do not have to worry so much about planning objections, which makes a big difference.”