British Solar Renewables

British Solar Renewables was founded in 2010 by Angus Macdonald, a Somerset entrepreneur with a background in financial publishing rather than energy, who wanted to combine renewable power generation with conservation and agriculture rather than treating solar as a standalone industrial project. Macdonald stayed on as a director until July 2016. Over 2012 the company grew into a fully integrated development platform, capable of taking a site from initial identification through construction and on to either sale or long-term ownership and management. It’s based in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, and has stayed rooted there ever since.

The company built its reputation as one of the UK’s top developers in the space, eventually becoming the largest privately owned, integrated solar developer in the country, majority owned at one stage by Siem Europe Sarl before ICG acquired a majority stake in July 2022. Along the way BSR ran its work through three connected divisions: BSR Energy for development, BSR EPC for construction, and BSR O&M for operations and maintenance, giving it control over a project’s entire lifecycle rather than handing pieces off to separate contractors.

The scale has grown substantially. BSR now operates as a fully integrated independent power producer with more than 900 MW of solar projects and 120 MW of storage across over 70 solar parks, together powering more than 350,000 UK households annually and avoiding roughly 140,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions a year. A £345 million debt financing round secured in 2024 is now funding a 609 MW pipeline of 12 solar and co-located solar-battery projects, expected to generate around 600 GWh a year once complete.
Nature has stayed part of the pitch throughout. Through what the company calls its Nature Protection Pledge, BSR commits to a minimum 60% biodiversity net gain on its sites, and it frames its projects as supporting UK land and food security alongside clean power generation, the same combination Macdonald built the company around back in 2010.