Bovington Tank Museum has installed solar panels on the roof of its exhibition hall.

Museum facilities manager Roy Hicks said: “The panels cover 90 per cent of the roof space above one of our exhibition halls.

“It is modest enough in character but not to be unsightly, whilst ensuring that the museum is now generating 10 per cent of its electricity needs from a renewable source that is sunlight. And south Dorset has lots of sunlight.”

Museum bosses say the panels will generate 47,000 kilowatt hours – around 20 times the combined electricity consumption of the average UK household.

This should reduce the museum’s carbon footprint by 20 tonnes a year, figures show.

Mr Hicks said: “This is a significant part of our new environmental policy, which also includes power saving and widespread recycling of waste materials.”

The project was developed for Farm Power Ltd, a renewable electricity company that now partners the museum.

Mark Simon, of Farm Power, said: “This project represents a milestone in that it is the first independently financed renewable energy project on Ministry of Defence buildings.

“The MOD has been hugely supportive of this initiative and we hope it will lead to many more schemes to assist government organisations meet carbon reduction commitments