Drainage product manufacturer, Wade International, has installed a 250KW rooftop array to reduce electricity costs.
After a five-year growth in sales demand Wade International expanded its manufacturing capacity with new laser cutting and welding equipment. This led to electricity costs soaring, so the company decided to install solar panels.
St Albans-based renewable energy engineer, Eco-Kinetics, installed a 250KW array to generate 205,000kWh per year for Wade International. The system uses 1,134 Eoplly solar modules across three roofs, mounted with 4,000m of Wurth mounting rail, and SMA inverters and monitors.
The rooftop system benefits from the ‘ROO-FIT’ feed-in-tariff for 5kW-5MW systems, and Wade International predicts it will save £20,000 in electricity costs a year with the new array.
James Carpenter, director of eco-Kinetics said “We have seen quite an increase in enquiries this year from business owners and farmers looking to reduce their energy costs by installing PV. Our clients are keen on the idea of utilising existing roof space to generate an additional income whilst reducing their energy bills using a technology that is reliable and simple to install. Even with the reduction in the FiT and slight increase in module prices since March, we are still seeing payback periods for systems of five to seven years with returns between 10-17%IRR”.