Council leaders, who have attacked plans for huge solar farms on Norfolk agricultural land, have been questioned about the lack of panels on County Hall.
Kay Mason Billig, Norfolk County Council leader, has said Norfolk is "under attack" from solar farm developers after applications were lodged to cover thousands of acres of farmland in panels.
Conservative Mrs Mason Billig said described the plans as "deeply disturbing" and a "creeping abuse" of the countryside, while calling for the county to resist them.
But, at a recent council meeting, the Conservative administration at County Hall was quizzed about why it had not installed panels in places where farmland would not be affected - at County Hall.
More than £70m was spent to revamp the 1968-built council headquarters, while a new £1.9m car park was added on the Martineau Lane site.
Labour county councillor Matt Reilly asked: "When the administration decided to build a new car park in County Hall grounds and to put a new roof on the north wing, why did they not use that opportunity to install solar panels?"
Jane James, the council's cabinet member for corporate services and innovation, said: "The north wing roof was for evaluated for solar panels at the time and was found to not be suitable.
"It suffers from shading, mainly from the tower, across most of the roof space until midday.
"This would severely hamper the system as any shaded areas would drop the generation across the stringed array significantly."
She said equipment for heating, ventilation and air conditioning also created shading which would have limited the effectiveness of the solar array.
Mrs James said the height of the car park - which neighbours had objected to - would have been even taller had solar panels been installed and could have caused "potential glare issues".
She said there were solar panels on the south wing of County Hall and on a number of other council buildings, including libraries and fire stations.
There have been a number of major applications for solar farms in Norfolk recently, including High Grove and the Droves near Swaffham and East Pye, near Long Stratton.
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