October 2, 2026
Why PowerMuster Panels Go on the Ground, Not the Roof
If you’ve spent any time around solar, your instinct is probably to put the panels on the roof — that’s where everyone else’s system lives. So, it’s a fair question we get from almost every farmer we talk to: why does PowerMuster mount its solar array on the ground instead of the shed roof?
The short answer is that a farm shed roof was built to keep the weather out, not to carry a commercial-scale power station. Once you look at what a PowerMuster array involves, ground mounting isn’t a compromise — it’s the better engineering decision, and it’s one reason PowerMuster works out cheaper and faster for farmers to install.
The roof runs out of room fast
A PowerMuster system isn’t a dozen panels for running the lights. The smallest package, PMP Homestead, uses 42 commercial-grade panels; PMP Farm uses 84; PMP Enterprise uses 126. Laid out on the ground, a single 25 kW array takes up around 125–150 m² — simple to find on a working farm, but far more roof than most sheds have to offer, especially once you account for ridge lines, roof penetrations, and orientation to the sun.
Weight is a structural problem, not a mounting one
Each panel is a large, heavy-duty commercial module — roughly 30.6 kg apiece, and at 2.3 m long, big enough that it takes two people to lift and position safely. Multiply that across 42 to 126 panels and you’re adding several tonnes of point-loaded weight to a roof structure. Most farm shed roofs were never designed to carry that, which means a roof-mount installation needs a structural engineer to assess and sign off on the roof before a single panel goes up — an extra design and approval step that a ground-mounted frame simply doesn’t require.
The real cost of going up
This is where roof mounting gets expensive — and not just a little. Fitting a commercial array to a roof typically adds somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000 to the job, once you account for:
- Lifting equipment (scissor lifts or cranes) to get panels onto the roof
- Working-at-heights certification for anyone installing at that scale
- Fall-arrest and other safety equipment for the crew
- Labour — a roof job is licensed installer work from start to finish; farmers can’t do it themselves
That last point is the big one.
Part of what makes PowerMuster cost-effective is that farmers can build the ground-mount frame, do the trenching and civil work, and mount the panels themselves — the same kind of job as putting up a shed or fencing. Put the same array on a roof, and that whole self-build saving disappears.
Dust, birds and rats
Rural WA means dust — and dust on panels means lost output. Nobody climbs onto a shed roof to clean panels regularly, so roof-mounted systems tend to get dirtier and stay dirtier. A ground-mounted array can be washed down or wiped over as often as needed, with no ladder required.
Roofs also attract birds. Nesting and droppings under a roof-mounted array are a known nuisance — and they don’t stop there. Bird nests and mess attract rats, and rats are notorious for chewing through wiring and cabling, which is the last thing you want hidden above your ceiling.
Insurance, permits and safety
Putting a large solar array on a roof can also trigger requirements that a ground mount avoids altogether — insurers may ask for the installation to be assessed before they’ll cover it, and some shires require a building permit for a structural addition of this size to an existing roof. A ground-mounted frame is typically permit-free and sits outside those extra hoops.
Then there’s the ongoing safety question: every time the array needs to be inspected, cleaned, or serviced, someone has to get up on the roof to do it. With commercial-size panels needing two people to handle safely, that’s a two-person job at height, every time — versus the same job done standing on solid ground.
Why ground mount wins
Put simply, mounting on the ground plays to a farm’s biggest advantage: space.
- Farmers can build the array themselves — the frame, trenching, and panel mounting are all within reach of a competent farm team, which is what keeps PowerMuster cheaper and faster to install than a roof-mounted equivalent.
- No permits generally required — a ground-mounted array typically sidesteps the building approvals a large roof addition can trigger.
- Room to size it right — farms have the space to lay out the array exactly to the size that suits their power needs, rather than being boxed in by whatever roof space happens to be available.
- Easier to inspect and clean — no ladders, no roof access, just walk the rows.
- Bifacial panels get to do their job — PowerMuster’s panels are bifacial, generating extra power from light reflected onto the back of the panel. Mounted on a roof, the back of the panel is blocked completely; on the ground, it’s free to generate that extra yield.
- It’s simply safer — no working at heights, no roof access equipment, no two-person lifts above ground level.
“Building the ground-mount frame myself was no different to fencing or shed building.”
— Simon Smith, F.B Smith & Sons, PowerMuster farmer
It’s exactly that practical, farmer-first thinking that keeps PowerMuster affordable, fast to install, and built the right way — from the ground up.