In February, England had 170% of its average rainfall. By 10 August, 71.3% of the country was in drought.
That contrast sums up the challenge facing farms and rural estates. For much of England, the issue is less how much rain falls than when it falls: the water arrives in winter and is needed in summer. The farms best placed for the years ahead will be the ones that can bridge that gap. With the right design, the same body of water can also produce a second income.
A summer that rewrote the record books
The UK’s average summer temperature reached 16.5°C, provisionally the warmest since records began in 1884 and 0.40°C higher than the previous record, set only a year earlier. England received just 64% of its average summer rainfall, and 54 Met Office stations broke their all-time maximum temperature records. The Met Office’s rapid attribution study found that climate change made a summer like this around 130 times more likely, and that one should now be expected roughly every nine years. The Met Office’s figures remain provisional until final statistics are published.
The impact on farms was severe. Farmers reported their earliest harvests in 20 years, with reduced yields. By 10 August, East Anglia had 1,534 irrigation restrictions in place, and 14 abstractors in Norfolk’s Wensum catchment had been forced to stop abstracting. Closer to home for us in Buckinghamshire, the River Misbourne, a chalk stream, reached 28°C.
This is also England’s third drought in five years, after 2022 and 2025. For anyone shaping a farm diversification strategy or planning for rural estate resilience, water security is now a core business risk rather than a nice-to-have.
Why on-farm water storage is back on the agenda
This year’s rainfall pattern makes the case for storage on its own. England had 150% of its average rainfall in January and 170% in February, then just 10% in July. A reservoir filled from winter high flows is one of the most practical ways to turn that winter surplus into summer security.
Reservoir storage in England fell 16% during July, the largest July drop in at least 30 years. By early September, national storage was down to 58%, with 11 reservoirs less than half full. Looking further ahead, the Environment Agency projects that England will need an extra 5 billion litres of water a day for public supply by 2055. In May, a House of Lords committee called for investment in water storage at every scale, including smaller reservoirs on farms.
The government has since acted:
- Grant funding. Defra is reopening the Water Management Grant with up to £15 million for on-farm reservoirs. It is expected to open in the autumn and will focus on storage for crop irrigation. Eligible items and terms have not yet been confirmed.
- Planning. The revised National Planning Policy Framework, published in August, now names on-farm reservoirs as an example of development that planning should support to maintain farm viability and food production. Updated planning guidance for on-farm reservoirs is expected from MHCLG in September, alongside a review of the permitted development rights that currently apply to them.
- Abstraction licensing. The Environment Agency has said that, from September, it will simplify applications for long-duration abstraction licences for reservoirs, specifically to help farmers secure long-term finance.
In short, funding for farm diversification projects built around water is opening up, national planning policy now supports them, and licensing is set to get simpler. We expect reservoir projects to increase over the next few years.
The add-on: floating solar
A reservoir on its own is a capital project that stores water. Add a floating solar array and it also becomes a renewable energy diversification project.
Four features make floating solar a natural partner for a farm reservoir:
- It takes very little productive land. The panels sit on water you have already committed to storage, with only a small footprint on the bank for equipment such as inverters, cabling and access. That protects your best farmland, which is a sound land use strategy in itself. At Sheeplands, the planning report did not treat glare as an issue, partly because water is already a reflective surface.
- It saves water. A study of a 130kW floating array on a Brazilian reservoir found it cut evaporation from the water beneath it by around 60%. Results will differ in the UK’s cooler climate, but the principle holds. At a global scale, researchers estimate that covering 30% of the surface of more than 114,000 reservoirs could save 106 cubic kilometres of water a year, although that is a modelled figure.
- It can improve water quality. Lancaster University modelling found that floating arrays cool water by shading it, which could help reduce toxic blue-green algae. The effects vary with conditions, however, and in some cases could be negative, so each site needs its own assessment.
- It can perform well. According to a World Bank market report, floating solar costs slightly more up front, but its costs over time can be on a par with ground-mounted solar because the water cools the panels and raises their output.
England recorded 752 hours of sunshine this summer, a third above average and its second sunniest summer on record. The same weather that drained the reservoirs is exactly what floating panels are built to harvest.
Case study: floating solar powering a Suffolk glasshouse
A recent project shows how this works on a working agricultural site. In November 2025, Suffolk-based installer East Green Energy, installed a 750kWp floating solar array on a reservoir serving Suffolk Fresh’s nursery near Ipswich. Around 1,250 panels cover roughly 3,500 square metres of water.
The nursery is an 8.4-hectare glasshouse, about the size of 11 football pitches, which the installer describes as the UK’s first semi-closed hydroponic glasshouse. Its refrigeration and airflow systems use a lot of electricity, so the brief was a renewable, space-efficient way to reduce reliance on conventional supplies. According to East Green Energy, the array supplies around 20% of the nursery’s energy demand, with the power going mainly to its refrigeration systems.
The project makes a useful reference point. The power is used on site by an energy-intensive agricultural business, the panels sit on water rather than productive land, and anchoring, access, security and wildlife all form part of the design.
Project details are as published by East Green Energy, and have not been independently verified.
Adding battery storage: from midday sun to night-time irrigation
Solar output peaks around midday, when overhead irrigation loses the most water to evaporation. A battery solves that. It stores the midday surplus so pumps can run in the evening or overnight, when cooler conditions mean less water is lost. The same stored power can also run cold stores, grain drying, workshops or holiday lets.
Some landowners go a step further and supply a neighbouring business directly. The QEII scheme shows how this works at scale, since it supplies its customer through a private network rather than the public grid. Selling electricity to another business counts as supply, which needs a licence or an exemption. Most small schemes rely on the Class A exemption, which covers up to 5MW of self-generated power, with no more than 2.5MW going to domestic customers, counted across the whole corporate group. Private wire opportunities for landowners with a suitable business nearby are worth testing at an early stage, with legal advice on the structure.
Batteries also change the grid picture. Great Britain’s connection queue grew to more than 700GW of projects, around four times what the country needs for 2030. Reform has since prioritised 283GW of generation and storage. Grid capacity for landowners remains tight in many areas. A scheme designed around on-site demand, with a battery to balance supply, depends far less on winning a large export connection. That makes a clear grid connection strategy for rural estates essential from day one. On the network side, any generator or battery above 16 amps per phase, roughly 11kW on a three-phase supply, needs the network operator’s approval under the G99 process before it is switched on, and batteries count towards that total. NESO has said its next applications window will open in the second half of 2026, but connection timetables have slipped before, so check the latest position.
National policy points the same way. The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan targets 45–47GW of solar and 23–27GW of battery capacity by 2030, up from 16.6GW and 4.5GW respectively when the plan was published in December 2024.
Battery safety is part of the planning picture too. Government planning guidance encourages developers to talk to the local fire and rescue service early, and the National Fire Chiefs Council updated its guidance for grid-scale battery sites in 2026.
This article is for general information only and is not legal, planning, financial or investment advice. It reflects the position in England as at September 2026. Rules differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and can change, so take advice on your own site. Third-party companies and projects are named for identification only, and no endorsement is implied.
Considering a reservoir, floating solar or wider energy diversification project?
At Dudley Peverill, we help farmers and rural landowners look at the bigger picture, from identifying opportunities on the farm to understanding planning, funding and how different diversification projects can work together.
We can also connect you with the right energy company to explore the technical and commercial side of floating solar, battery storage and private-wire opportunities.
If you’re considering how your water, land and energy assets could work harder for your business, get in touch with Dudley Peverill to discuss your plans.