Solar South West has completed a 1.2MW solar PV project for warehouse and transport company J B Wheaton & Sons in South Chard, Somerset. Their management, already enthusiastic about sustainable business practices, was committed to optimising the company’s warehouse for solar energy.

In April of 2010, when the feed-in tariff scheme was launched, J B Wheaton & Sons immediately made plans to install a 10kW trial PV array on the façade of one of the warehouses.

Since the yield of energy was consistently ahead of predictions, the company moved ahead with more extensive plans.

The next stage of the array, which utilized all of the south west-facing pitch roofs, contained 2,030 190Wp A-Sun modules. Combined with the initial 10kW installation, the roof then housed 395kWp of PV.

The system was then expanded once more to 1,200kWp by installing a further 4,000 modules in waste ground between the warehouse and the London to Exeter railway line. This stage utilised 200Wp mono A-SUN modules, which feature 18.5% cells efficiency and provide 156.7/m2.

In the short term JB Wheaton will be a net exporter of electricity, but in the longer term the income stream will allow the company to re-invest in expanded refrigerated storage.

The roof was started on 15th November 2010 and commissioned on 24th Feb 2011. The extension to the site (the ground mount to the waste land) was started on 17th April and commissioned 6th June 2011.