A HAMPSHIRE farm supplying a major British retailer has cut its energy bills and carbon emissions by installing solar panels.

The 4,000-acre Leckford Estate, near Winchester, owned by supermarket firm Waitrose, will power its milking parlour and lighting through the new rooftop system.

The farm, near Stockbridge, supplies Waitrose with produce including milk, poultry, mushrooms and cider.

Energy produced from the rooftop panels is enough to power 40 homes for a year, saving around 71,000kg of carbon emissions a year.

Hive Energy designed the panels and has used the government’s Feed in Tariff to install them for free.

Andrew Hoad, head of the Leckford Estate, said: “Waitrose has made a firm commitment to reduce its carbon emissions and installing solar panels at the Leckford Estate farm is just one of the ways in which we’re trying to do this.

“Making our own renewable energy on-site is also a great investment for our business. It means our milking parlour has a significantly lower carbon footprint.”

Hive Energy’s commercial director, Tim Purbrick, added: “We’ve seen a real surge at the moment in switched-on companies like Waitrose wanting to use solar energy to power their business. It not only makes them greener but is also a cheaper, more stable source of energy. This has got to be good for the environment and for British business too.”

Leckford Estate was bought in 1928 by John Spedan Lewis, founder of the John Lewis Partnership which operates Waitrose.

It runs other green initiatives around recycling, renewable energy and using recycled mushroom compost on its arable crops.