Quick answer
Six theatre sessions at Solar & Storage Live UK 2026 (NEC Birmingham, 22 to 24 September) covered business battery storage, data centre power, private wire, grid connections, solar maintenance and decommissioning. Almost every one came back to the same point: owners who plan the whole life of their equipment, keep good records and repair before they replace spend less and lose less generation.
Key takeaways
- Data centres value getting connected sooner over a cheaper power price, and solar alone cannot supply a round-the-clock load.
- For private wire, the cable route across roads, rail and rivers can decide a project as much as the capacity does.
- Solar owners who time repairs for the winter months, keep fault records and plan end of life from day one spend less over the asset's life.
Solar & Storage Live UK ran from 22 to 24 September 2026 at the NEC in Birmingham. Our UK sister company, Severn Drives & Energy, exhibited on Booth L9 (we previewed the show here), and our account executive Arun Sundar attended six of the many panel discussions by industrial experts from the field.
This write-up is for people who own or run solar farms, battery systems and the sites that depend on them. For each talk we summarise what was said, then what we think it means for the owner. Speakers and their companies are not named.
1. Business battery storage: when you use power matters as much as how much
What was said. One speaker called commercial and industrial (C&I) storage, meaning batteries on business sites rather than homes or grid-scale farms, a largely untapped market, with schools, healthcare sites and hotels as strong candidates. Carbon deadlines and rising demand from heat pumps, electric vehicles and cooling add urgency, and cheaper solar is shortening payback. The point that stuck: a battery lets a business move its grid use away from the most expensive hours.
What it means if you own the asset. The savings only hold while the battery runs, so before buying, ask who will service it in year eight and whether it can also carry the site through a power cut. We cover that second question in BESS vs UPS, and common pairing problems in solar and battery integration challenges.
2. Data centres: getting connected sooner can beat a cheaper price
What was said. A panel on data centre power said speed comes first: getting connected sooner can be worth more than a cheaper electricity price. Speakers discussed behind-the-meter generation (solar, batteries and backup built on or next to the site, feeding it directly) to bridge the wait for a grid connection. The panel said a 100 MW data centre cannot simply be paired with a 100 MW solar farm, and that gas backup still has a role through short UK winter days. Generation built for a data centre also keeps its value once the grid arrives.
What it means if you run the site. The sizing point is easy to check. Over a year, UK solar produces only around a tenth of its rated output (government figures put the median at 9.2% for 2024/25), and the Midlands gets under eight hours of daylight in late December. A site that runs around the clock needs a system: generation, storage, backup and eventually the grid. The customer is paying for power that keeps going through failures and dull days, so the UPS and battery design matters as much as the power deal.
3. Private wire into a data centre: the cable route can be harder than the megawatts
What was said. A developer spoke about running a private wire from a solar farm into a data centre. A private wire is a direct cable from a generator to a user, outside the public network. Most of the talk was about the cable: road, rail and river crossings can decide a project, civil and electrical engineers need to plan together from day one, and in the developer's view longer routes can still work for larger schemes, where the scale absorbs the cable cost.
What it means if you are weighing one up. Private wire is often sold as a commercial deal, but engineering decides it: the route, the protection that stops a fault on one side tripping the other, the metering, and how the two supplies share the load. If you are stuck in the queue, our article on grid connection queue delays and private wire sets out when it is worth pricing.
4. Grid connections: capacity should go to projects that are ready to build
What was said. A panel on whether the UK grid can keep up with data centre demand argued that connections should go first to projects that can prove they are real, through money committed, equipment ordered and milestones met. Today's queue does not show which will be built. Ideas raised included cutting demand first through better cooling, phased connections that grow to an agreed profile instead of full capacity on day one, reusing big connections at closed industrial sites, and using heat pumps to turn data centre waste heat into heating for nearby buildings. Gas, the panel warned, is not automatically the quick fix it looks.
What it means if you need more power. Know your real demand curve, ask for capacity in stages, and check what connection already exists near the site before joining the back of the queue. The studies the network will ask for take months, so start them early. We walk through the process in grid connection for electrification projects.
5. Decommissioning: the recycling fee is only part of the bill
What was said. A speaker on decommissioning, meaning taking a site apart at the end of its life, stressed that it covers the whole asset: panels, inverters, frames, cables, transformers and switchgear. Recycling may be the easy part: everything must be dismantled, packed and moved first, and gaps in what the owner knows about quantities, condition or access are what push costs up, so the recycling fee alone says little about the real bill. Owners who share inventories, photos and access details early get firmer quotes. A clear site is not finished until you can show where every item went. Solar panels have fallen under the UK's electrical waste rules (the WEEE Regulations) since January 2014, so that paper trail matters.
What it means if your site is nearing end of life. Not everything that comes off a solar farm is waste. Inverters, transformers and switchgear can often be tested and refurbished as spares for sites still running, and with transformer and switchgear lead times stretching into years, a tested spare is worth having.
6. Solar maintenance: plan the big jobs for winter, not July
What was said. A panel on solar operations and maintenance (O&M) said some underperformance starts before commissioning, when the built system does not match the design, so checks before handover matter. Older sites need scopes built around their inverters, high-voltage equipment and failure history. Big inverter jobs belong in the low-output winter months, not in July. The panel also wanted O&M teams involved at design, and fewer contractor changes so site knowledge stays.
What it means if you run an older site. Records are what make repair the sound choice. If you can see which inverter failed, how often and why, you can plan the fix for February instead of losing a summer week. On grid support equipment we have rebuilt a burned-out inverter section inside a DSTATCOM on site rather than replace the whole unit, and records matter even more when a solar farm changes hands.
The common thread: plan the whole life of the asset
Across very different subjects, the speakers kept arriving at the same place: equipment has a life, and owners who plan for it from the start spend less and lose less generation. It is how we work too: refurbish and repair before replace, backed by testing and condition data.
Three things any owner can do this winter:
- Keep the records. Drawings, commissioning results, fault logs and repair history lower O&M costs, speed up a sale and firm up decommissioning quotes.
- Time the work. Schedule inverter repairs and major maintenance for the low-generation months, and order long-lead parts before you need them.
- Test before you replace or scrap. Inverters, battery modules, transformers and switchgear can often be repaired or reused, and a condition test tells you which before you commit to buying new.
Planning repairs, upgrades or end of life for a solar or storage site? We test, repair and refurbish the power electronics we support, including STATCOM, UPS and battery systems, and our consultancy team runs the grid studies networks ask for. If your question is about the solar inverters themselves, ask us and we'll tell you straight whether a repair is possible. Start a consultation or email sales@renewable-d.com.
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What were the main themes at Solar & Storage Live UK 2026?
Across the six theatre sessions we attended: faster power for data centres, private wire and cable routes, giving grid connections to projects ready to build, battery storage on business sites, and whole-life care of solar farms, from maintenance timing to decommissioning.
Can a solar farm power a data centre on its own?
Not on its own. UK solar produces around a tenth of its rated output across a year and very little on short winter days, while a data centre draws power around the clock. Speakers described solar as one part of a system that also needs batteries, backup generation and, in time, a grid connection.
What should a solar farm owner plan for at end of life?
The whole site, panels included. Inverters, cables, transformers and switchgear all need removing, and costs rise when quantities and condition are unknown. Keep an accurate inventory, agree early who handles each waste stream, keep evidence of where everything went, and test electrical equipment for reuse before recycling it.
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