Small Self-Catering Parks: Solar panels for holiday lets

A small self-catering park is a step up in scale from a single cottage or lodge, and the solar case changes shape accordingly. Instead of one roof and one hot tub, you have a cluster of cottages or lodges plus the buildings the owner actually pays to run: a reception, a laundry, shared lighting and often an amenity or shower block. Solar goes site-wide on the buildings whose electricity bill lands on the operator, offsetting the reception and laundry load that turns over at every changeover, the shared lighting that runs across the site, and the guest EV charging that is fast becoming a booking expectation. At this scale the array is a small-commercial project, and it earns its return by covering a continuous, operator-owned baseload rather than a single seasonal spike.

A small self-catering park typically suits a site-wide array of 15-50 kW, roughly 35-110 panels across 100-350 square metres of reception, amenity-block and cottage or lodge roof, at an indicative project value of £22,000-£70,000. That generates in the order of 13,500-47,000 kWh a year and saves 3-11 tonnes of CO2. Indicative payback lands near seven years, at the faster end of the holiday-let range, because the operator-owned load, laundry, reception, amenity and EV charging, is steadier and better matched to daytime generation than a single let’s seasonal hot tub. These are scoping ranges, not quotes.

Where the load sits on a park

The key insight for a park owner is that not all the electricity on the site is yours to offset. Individual cottages and lodges may be separately metered to the guest’s cost or the unit’s own account. The load that matters for a site-wide array is the operator’s own consumption: the reception open through the day, the laundry running hot and heavy at every changeover, the shared and security lighting, the shower or amenity block on a busy site, and increasingly a bank of guest EV chargers.

That operator load has a useful characteristic. Unlike a single cottage where demand spikes around the hot tub, a park’s operator baseload is spread across the daylight hours, laundry through the day, reception continuously, amenity block from morning to night. That spread means a high share of generation is self-consumed directly as it is produced, which is exactly the profile that gives site-wide solar a shorter payback than a single let. A battery still earns its place for evening amenity and EV load, but the daytime self-consumption baseline is stronger from the start.

The laundry is the quiet workhorse

On most small parks the on-site laundry is the load owners underestimate, and it is one of the best matches for solar there is. A park turning over multiple units every changeover day runs commercial washing and drying through the daylight hours, week after week across the season, and drying in particular is a heavy, sustained electrical draw. Because that draw happens in the middle of the day, right under the peak of the generation curve, a large share of it can be met directly from the array with almost no reliance on storage. Sizing the system with the laundry pattern in mind, rather than treating it as background load, often lifts the whole project’s self-consumption and shortens the payback. It is the clearest example of why a park is modelled from real metered operator consumption rather than a rule of thumb.

Guest EV charging at park scale

EV charging is the growing driver at park scale, and it is a near-perfect solar match. A row of chargers absorbing midday generation self-consumes at close to 100%, and guests filter for parks that offer it. Because a park is a business installing multiple sockets, the OZEV Workplace Charging Scheme applies where a single cottage would not qualify, currently up to 75% of cost capped at £500 per socket from 1 April 2026, for up to 40 sockets, using an OZEV-approved installer and chargepoints. Designed alongside the array, guest charging becomes a self-consuming daytime load that draws down your own generation and a listing feature that helps fill the park, rather than a grid cost that eats the margin.

Cost, payback and an indicative model

To ground the numbers, picture a small park of eight cottages with a reception, a shared laundry, an amenity block and four guest EV chargers. A site-wide array of, say, 30 kW across the reception, amenity-block and cottage roofs sits in the middle of the indicative range and might generate around 27,000-28,000 kWh a year. Modelled against a daytime operator load, laundry, reception, amenity and daytime EV charging, a high share is self-consumed directly, with a battery carrying the evening amenity and charging demand and the winter surplus exported under the Smart Export Guarantee. On assumptions like these the payback tends to sit around the faster end of the holiday-let range because the operator load is steady and daytime-weighted. That is an illustrative model for scoping, not a quote, and your real figure depends on your metered operator consumption, your roofs and your DNO. See the cost guide for the variables that move it.

Compliance at park scale

Grid connection is the defining compliance step at this size. A site-wide array above 17 kW per phase needs a G99 application to the DNO, not the simple G98 notification a single cottage uses, and rural and coastal parks are frequently on capacity-constrained networks. That means a connection study comes before final sizing, not after, because the network’s available capacity can shape how much you can install and export. We treat the DNO conversation as an early step, and where capacity is tight we size around it rather than promising an array the network cannot accept.

Metering matters too. At park scale we work from a half-hourly meter read of the operator’s own supply, so the array is sized to real measured consumption rather than an estimate. That is the difference between a system that self-consumes well and one that over-generates into a low-value export tariff.

Planning for park buildings is usually permitted development subject to size limits, but parks in AONBs, National Parks and conservation or coastal settings attract greater scrutiny, so discreet siting on the less visible roofs and a visual-impact note where needed are the norm. The solar panel planning rules set out the limits.

On tax, the same April 2025 change applies: the Furnished Holiday Lettings capital-allowance route was abolished, so treatment depends on whether the park is held personally or through a company. A park run as a genuine trading business through a company may have more of the capital-allowance picture open, including the Annual Investment Allowance on qualifying plant, but that turns on structure and activity. Take your own tax advice, and see the government’s capital allowances guidance. Our grants and funding routes page sets out what genuinely still applies, including the Smart Export Guarantee on off-season export.

Where a small park ends and a large park begins

This page is about the small self-catering park: a cluster of cottages or lodges with a reception and an amenity block, run by an owner-operator, on a site-wide array in the 15-50 kW range. That is a different animal from a large caravan or lodge holiday park with hundreds of units, a static-caravan estate, or a group operating multiple resorts. Those larger sites bring half-megawatt arrays, complex private-network distribution, sub-metering across dozens of units and connection engineering on another scale.

If your site is a large caravan or lodge group rather than a small self-catering park, the right home for that work is our sibling site solarpanelsforholidayparks.co.uk, which covers the site-wide distribution, sub-metering and larger connection engineering that scale demands. We would rather point you to the right specialist than stretch a small-park design over a project it does not fit. For a cluster of a handful of cottages or lodges with shared amenities, this page and this design approach are the correct fit.

Phasing a park install around the season

A park cannot close for a fortnight in July to have solar fitted, so the work is phased around the calendar. Roof work on individual cottages or lodges is slotted into changeover gaps or scheduled while a unit is between bookings, the reception and amenity-block arrays are timed for quieter periods, and the more disruptive elements, the DNO connection and any switchgear work, are booked for the off-season when the park is lightly occupied. That phasing means a park-wide install proceeds without a single lost booking, and it is planned against your own occupancy calendar rather than the installer’s convenience. For a park owner protecting a thin seasonal margin, that scheduling discipline is as much a part of the job as the array design.

Common questions from park owners

How is a park sized differently from a single cottage? From a half-hourly meter read of your own operator supply, not a rule of thumb. We size the array to your real daytime load, laundry, reception, amenity and EV charging, so it self-consumes well rather than over-generating into a low export tariff.

Do I need a G99 application? Above 17 kW per phase, yes, and most site-wide park arrays are in that range. A connection study with the DNO comes before final sizing because capacity on rural and coastal networks can shape how much you can install.

Can guest EV charging pay for itself? It self-consumes daytime solar at close to 100%, it is a listing draw, and at park scale the OZEV Workplace Charging Scheme can fund up to 75% of the sockets. Designed with the array, it is an asset rather than a cost.

Will the install shut the park down? No. The work is phased around your occupancy, roof by roof and building by building, with the disruptive connection work booked for the off-season, so bookings are protected.

Measurement, reporting and the Green Tourism edge

A park is a business, and a site-wide array gives it something a single cottage rarely bothers with: real, meterable data on generation, self-consumption and carbon avoided. That data is worth capturing, because it feeds directly into a Green Tourism submission and into the sustainability claims a park can make to guests and booking platforms. On-site solar is auditable evidence rather than a soft assertion, and at park scale, where the marketing spend and the guest volume are both higher than a single let, the return on being able to prove a low-carbon operation is real. Monitoring also earns its keep operationally: it shows whether the laundry, reception and EV load are being met from the array as designed, and it flags a fault or a drop in yield before it quietly costs a season of generation. For an owner running a park on a seasonal margin, that combination, verified sustainability marketing plus early fault detection, is a genuine reason to specify proper monitoring from the outset rather than bolting it on later.

Why a park is the strongest holiday-let solar case

Of all the holiday-let sub-types, a small self-catering park usually shows the cleanest economics, and it is worth being explicit about why. The operator’s own load, laundry, reception, shared lighting, amenity block and guest EV charging, is both larger and steadier than a single let’s, and crucially it is weighted to the daylight hours when the array is generating. That gives a high direct self-consumption before a battery is even considered, which is the single biggest driver of a short payback. Add the Workplace Charging Scheme on the EV sockets, the Smart Export Guarantee on off-season surplus, and the marketing value of a verifiable low-carbon operation, and the park case stacks up from several directions at once. None of that removes the need to model it properly from your own metered consumption, but it does explain why we quote a shorter indicative payback here than for a hot-tub cottage or a single lodge.

The park owner’s short list

For a small-park owner the decision usually turns on a few questions. What is the operator’s own metered consumption across reception, laundry and amenity. How much roof do you control on the buildings you pay for. Are you adding or expanding guest EV charging. What has the DNO said about available capacity on your supply. And is the park in a protected landscape that shapes siting. Answer those and the site-wide sizing follows, from a half-hourly meter read rather than a guess.

A small self-catering park has the best daytime self-consumption profile of any holiday-let sub-type, because the operator load is steady and daylight-weighted, and that is why the payback tends to be shorter. When you want the site modelled from your metered consumption and your DNO’s capacity position, request a quote, and for the full picture across cottages, lodges and glamping, start from the solar panels for holiday lets hub.