Some of the best growing land in the country is nowhere near a power supply. Solar powered irrigation solves that… a system that pumps, stores and delivers water using nothing but daylight, in exactly the places where running mains power is impossible or wildly expensive.
We design and install solar irrigation systems across the UK, from field troughs and remote paddocks to full drip irrigation running off-grid.
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The principle is simple: solar panels power a pump, the pump moves water, and storage smooths out the gaps.
The solar irrigation pump. Sized to your lift and flow, not bought off a shelf. A pump that’s wrong by a small margin either starves the crop or wastes half the array. Pump selection is the heart of the design — the same discipline as our mains-powered pumps and control systems.
Storage as the battery. In most systems the cheapest place to store energy is in the water itself. Pump to an elevated tank or reservoir while the sun shines, irrigate by gravity or on demand later. Our water storage solutions do the balancing.
The delivery side. Solar pairs naturally with drip irrigation, because drip needs less pressure and less water than any other method… which means fewer panels and a smaller pump for the same crop.
Controls. Simple float switches up to full smart irrigation control, so the system runs itself through the season.
One design choice worth knowing: a solar pump can drive drip lines directly, but most systems perform better pumping to storage first and irrigating from there — a tank-fed system waters reliably at any time of day, in any weather.
Honestly: solar isn’t the right answer everywhere. In a UK winter an undersized array moves very little water, and some high-demand systems still justify mains or diesel. Part of our design work is telling you which side of that line your site sits on — before you spend anything.
Winter is the honest test. Output drops, but so does irrigation demand — and for year-round jobs like float-controlled livestock troughs, one of the most common solar setups we build, the array and storage are sized for the worst month, not the best one.
Four numbers decide a solar irrigation system, and we measure all of them before specifying anything: the lift (how far up the water has to travel — the single biggest driver of pump and array size); the daily demand in litres, at its summer peak; the sun the site actually gets, panel orientation and shading included; and the storage buffer needed to carry dull days. Get those four right and the system disappears into the background. Get them wrong and no amount of extra panels fixes it.
Those numbers, not the field size, set the array: a low lift with modest demand runs on a surprisingly small array, while a deep borehole needs proper sizing. The same goes for the source — stream, borehole or storage tank all work, subject to the abstraction rules that apply to your site, and the intake, filtration and pump are designed around it.
This is the most common conversion we’re asked about, and the maths usually favours it: no fuel to cart, no servicing schedule, no theft-prone kit left in a field, and nothing to start on a cold morning. We reuse existing pipework and troughs where they’re sound, so the changeover is usually far quicker and simpler than installing a new system.
We’re a family-run Lancashire irrigation firm covering the whole of the UK. Solar irrigation is still full of glossy kit sold without design behind it… panels that don’t match the pump, pumps that don’t match the lift. We size the whole chain — sun, pump, storage, delivery — as one system, install it, and stand behind it afterwards.
And if something ever fails mid-season, you call the person who designed it. We support our own installs — and solar pumping systems have very few moving parts to go wrong in the first place.
Tell us about your site and we’ll design the right system around it. Call Simon on 07881 271 117, email simon@sitetech.uk, or get in touch to arrange a design visit.
Yes, when it’s sized for UK light levels rather than a brochure’s. The design assumes real seasonal output, and storage carries the system through dull spells. UK growing season and solar output also peak together, which works in your favour.
Usually not. Storing water in a tank is cheaper and more reliable than storing electricity in a battery. Batteries only earn their place in specific designs — controls, dosing or night pumping — and we’ll say so if yours is one.
Every job is different, due to the site, the lift and the equipment used, so we design first and price the actual system. What we can say up front: no fuel, minimal servicing and no mains connection charge change the running-cost picture completely.
Yes — based in Lancashire, working across the UK and internationally.
