Case Histories
We are proud to work with homes and businesses across Kent for nearly 20 years.
We are fully accredited and approved to offer a full range of services: design, specification, installation & certification for domestic, commercial, industrial, medical and agricultural applications.
​
Here's some of our most recent work.
Standard sized new build near Maidstone
BRIEF: Reduce bills by adding solar panels to a modern, highly efficient nearly new home.
​
The client came to us with a highly efficient nearly-new home heated by an air source heat pump. Despite exceeding all insulation requirements the annual demand was 6,000 units pa, largely because of the heat pump. We devised a panel, battery and inverter solution to support the heat pump with its random periods of high energy draw.
​
We installed 10 solar panels with a 4.2kW capability and a battery capacity of 9.6kWh. This more than halved the client’s electricity bill and the solar installation will have paid for itself in 4 years, ignoring any possible increase in the property value as a result.
Large domestic old property near Faversham
The customer came to us as the long term owner of a large picturesque country property, partially heated by oil and partially by an air source heat pump. Energy consumption was large by domestic standards at 18,000 units pa.
We devised an aesthetically acceptable panel solution in an ideal orientation that avoided any damage to roofs or ground covering. This is a ballasted system whereby the panels are secured in specialist containers that are held in place by weight alone. This weight is added piecewise using hidden ballast sacks and forms an extremely cost effective & rapid solution to panel ground mounting. The maximum height of the panels is below the knee and they can be left securely for 20-30 years or easily re-located if necessary.
In this case the optimal system size was 18 panels a 7.4kW capability combined with a battery capacity of 14.4kWh. This is run with a solar-specific energy tariff to allow for cheap battery charging overnight and the ability to sell back excess panel production in the day.
The client will save nearly £3000 per year at current electricity costs and this represented return on investment of 22%. The client was delighted to invest funds otherwise earning 5% in a deposit account as well as making their old property a responsible energy consumer.
Plastic Moulding Factory in Ashford
The client came to us facing a three-fold increase in energy costs after the expiry of an old fixed rate tariff. Their manufacturing processes are highly energy intensive and use electricity exclusively as a clean fuel consuming over 500,000 units per year.
The challenge was to use as much of the roof space as possible, including much of an older building with an asbestos roof. We sought HSE approval and acquired all necessary equipment to work safely with the fragile roof covering and devised our own panel fixing method to cope with projected wind loading.
In total we managed to install 126 panels giving a capability of 65kW to the three phase equipment below. Virtually all of this generation is self-consumed in daylight hours with a fairly constant energy draw so the cost of battery storage was uneconomic and therefore not included. The picture below shows one of the smaller steel roofs.
​
The energy saving gave an overall annual return on investment of 31% versus the business’ cost of capital of under 10%. The client will re-coup their investment in just over three years and will continue to reap benefits for the 25yr+ design life.
Dairy Farm near Maidstone
The client was a medium sized dairy farmer facing many obvious financial challenges and some less expected ones. Aside from milk pumping machinery there were high demands from refrigeration, water heating, sterilising equipment and lighting which culminated in a energy requirement throughout the day. The annual energy consumption was approx 80,000 units pa and, like many businesses, the client was facing huge increases in energy costs as old tariffs expired. Energy demands varied throughout the day but were minimal overnight. Our calculations showed that battery storage would increase self-consumption of panel production but not enough to match the profitability of the panels alone, hence an investment in batteries was sub-optimal and therefore excluded.
We installed 72 panels with a 36kW capability feeding the three phase equipment below. The estimated return on investment was 34% pa and the client can fund this at 5% pa.