Solar panels for farms and agriculture

You can check the conditions on your roof by searching for your address at solkart.no. For commercial buildings, housing co-operatives and jointly-owned properties, farms and solar parks, you can also contact our advisers at bedrift@solcellespesialisten.no. We are always happy to come out for a site survey.

South-facing roof surfaces usually give the highest annual output, peaking around the middle of the day. East- and west-facing surfaces generate more in the morning and the afternoon, which spreads production more evenly across the day. In our own PV calculator on solkart.no, a roof in Oslo gives around 1 006 kWh per kWp a year when the surface is pitched 25 degrees to the south, against around 800 kWh per kWp on a flat roof with panels at 10 degrees to the east and west (run on 17 September 2026, P50, 5% system loss, snow and soiling losses included). Shading from neighbouring rows and the surroundings is not included in the figures. Total annual output is somewhat lower, but east/west can suit you particularly well if your consumption is heaviest early or late in the day. This holds for any type of building, whether a housing co-operative, a barn or an industrial building with a flat roof. You get the figure for your own roof in Solsjekk.

In principle you can have solar panels on several roof surfaces. Because of technical requirements there are certain limits on the number of panels per roof surface. It can also become more expensive the more surfaces are covered, as more inverters may be needed.

It has to be assessed building by building. A solar energy installation is a building services installation under the Norwegian Planning and Building Act (pbl. § 20-1 bokstav f). Installing or altering one within a single dwelling unit or fire compartment counts as a simple installation and is exempt from the application requirement, but on a farm building the system often spans several fire compartments, and then the exemption does not apply. The same goes if the building sits within a conservation area or close to the shoreline or a railway line. The new exemption for solar energy installations that applies from 1 July 2026 covers small houses and certain detached buildings – not farm buildings and commercial buildings. We help you check this with the local authority before installation.

Every solar system must be registered with the grid company. We take care of that process. All we need from you is your meter number. The role your building takes on the grid depends on how much the installation can export to the grid. As long as the installation exports no more than 100 kW, you are registered as a plus customer, the formal term for a prosumer – a customer who both uses and produces electricity – and you are paid for the surplus exported to the grid. If it exports more, you become a producer, with separate terms for feed-in and settlement. We establish which category your building falls into before the system is designed.

Once the quote is confirmed, the project manager agrees the installation date with you. When it can happen depends on the scope of the project, delivery of materials and any applications to the local authority and the grid company.

If the goods are marked “registered damage”, this is a routine from the supplier and something we will follow up. In most cases only the packaging is damaged and the goods themselves are unaffected. If you can see that the goods are extensively damaged, please contact us as soon as possible on 45 72 87 80.

Solcellespesialisten has its own installers, who are experienced at installing solar and have a solid background in both the electrical and the construction side of the work. We have the capacity to install around two in three projects with our own employees. The rest are carried out by regular subcontractors we have worked with for many years.

As a rule we have our own installers for connecting the solar system to the grid. They usually come once the roof installation is finished. You will receive a separate email with the connection date.

Solar panels are essentially self-cleaning. The installation should still be inspected in line with the manufacturer’s recommendations. The largest installations should have an on-site inspection several times a year, the smallest every three years. An inspection can include a visual check from the ground and making sure the cables are secured and protected. If the panels are still particularly dirty after rain, you can hose them down gently. Avoid brushes and snow shovels, as these can scratch the panels and void the warranty.

An inverter converts the direct current (DC) from the solar panels into the alternating current (AC) the grid uses. Its size depends on the output of the installation. Cables run from the inverter both to the solar array and to the fuse box, which may be inside the building. An inverter can make some noise while producing, and there are also several fire safety requirements governing where it can be placed. Our installers help you find the best position when they fit the panels.

We supply solar panels in different sizes and power ratings from several manufacturers, and choose the panel to suit each project. Today we use panels from LONGi, Tongwei, AIKO and JA Solar. We weigh performance, the roof structure and how the building is used to find the best solution.

The size of a solar panel varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and generally increases with the output of the panel. Smaller panels are usually around 1.7 metres tall, while larger panels for industrial buildings can be up to 2.4 metres. We choose the panel to suit each project.

The panels can take a great deal of snow. In areas with heavy snowfall we fit an extra rail beneath the panels so they do not break under the snow load. The project manager will assess this before installation.

The wind load is calculated for every installation to NS-EN 1991-1-4 with the Norwegian national annex, not only where the building is exposed. Three things determine the load: the reference wind velocity for the municipality, the terrain category and the height of the building. A farm building standing free in open farmland gets a higher load than one sheltered by forest or other development. The standard also sets stricter requirements along the roof edge, at the gables and in the corners than in the middle of the roof, and there the fixings sit closer together. We take the terrain category from map data rather than estimating it; this is how.

A turnkey system from us includes everything: grid registration, design, installation, safety work, commissioning, AC connection and the final documentation.

The surplus is sold to your electricity supplier under the agreement you have with them, and the terms vary between suppliers. If the installation can export more than 100 kW to the grid, you are no longer a plus customer but a producer, and selling the power requires a separate agreement. We establish which category the installation falls into before it is designed.

No. The electricity produced by the panels always goes to consumers in the building first. If the panels produce more than the building uses, the surplus automatically goes out onto the grid.

Solar panels always generate something as long as they are not covered and daylight is falling on the surface of the panel. In winter there is generally little sun, and snow will cover the panels. We have calculated the seasonal split in our own PV calculator on solkart.no, run on 17.09.2026: on a barn roof in Rakkestad, 97% of the annual output falls between March and October with panels at 10° facing east and west, and 93% on a south-facing roof pitched at 25°. At Hamar the shares are 98% and 95%. Across the country the share ranges from 91% (Stavanger, south-facing 25°) to close to 100% (Tromsø, flat roof) – the further north, the shorter the season. The assumptions are the same as in our calculator: 5% system losses, crystalline panels, free-standing mounting, a P50 solar year, terrain horizon, and snow and soiling losses included. Shading from neighbouring rows and the surroundings is not included in the figures. You get the figure for your own roof in Solsjekk.

All of our inverters come with production monitoring in the form of a phone app. The electrician who commissions the system will set this up and show you how to use the app.

If the inverter is connected to the grid, a power cut on the grid will cause the inverter to stop supplying electricity. You will not have your own consumption covered by the solar panels either while the grid is down.

Kilowatt-peak (kWp) is the rated output of each solar panel under standard test conditions (STC). STC sets requirements for temperature, irradiance and angle that are only met on certain occasions in Norway. Production over the rest of the year will be a percentage of the stated kWp. Kilowatt-hours (kWh) are a measure of energy, given by power multiplied by time. If a solar panel produces at 1 kW for one hour, it has produced 1 kWh of electrical energy.

DC stands for Direct Current and AC stands for Alternating Current. Solar panels produce DC. The electricity in buildings and on the grid is always AC, which is why we need an inverter to turn DC into AC.