The work will be complete by March 2012 on stores in Cardiff, Edmonton, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Southampton, Warrington, Wednesbury and Wembley.

Steve Howard, Chief Sustainability Officer, IKEA Group said: “We aim for all IKEA UK buildings to be fitted with solar panels in the long-term.

“As part of our global ‘IKEA Goes Renewable’ programme, we are committed to heavily investing in making IKEA buildings more energy efficient and use more renewable energy.

“For example, our most recently built UK based stores in Coventry, Southampton and Dublin have been designed to incorporate measures that will have a major impact on these areas, including geothermal heating and cooling systems, biomass boilers and improved insulation.

“Following a thorough audit of all our existing buildings in the UK, we have also created action plans for each, which includes retro-fit measures to improve energy efficiency.”