EvoEnergy are pleased to announce the completion of a 9.99kWp photovoltaic Solar Farm on Shefield University’s Hicks building.
On site work commenced on 21st June 2010 and was live at close of play on 24th June 2010.
EvoEnergy was chosen to design and commission the Solar Farm because of its proven track record in design and installation of bespoke photovoltaic solutions at Nottingham and Cambridge University’s.
The Solar farm not only helps Sheffield University to reduce its carbon footprint but was also designed for research purposes at the University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. Work here is already underway to develop next generation solar cells using cutting edge plastics cells as opposed to silicon cells. Changing the cell material will lead, in time to the unit cost of the photovoltaic cells dropping dramatically allowing a more affordable solution to hit the market place. In turn making photovoltaic installs much more common place and reducing the world carbon footprint at a much greater pace.
Sheffield Solar farm will be used to monitor the effectiveness of the new photovoltaic cells against existing technologies in the real world. The data will be logged on a specially designed website. This will include a live web-cam and web-feed showing the actual power being generated by each panel. This assists in the studies of the effects of different weather conditions on the panels.
The research project includes staff from various parts on the university including Chemistry, Geography, Mathematics and Statistics.
The commissioning of the Solar Farm coincides with the launch of “Project sunshine” a unique venture aimed at uniting scientists with the common goal of finding efficient ways of harnessing the suns infinite power, and to tackle head on, one of the biggest problems the world has ever faced. Climate change.
Installation
EvoEnergy designed a bespoke fixing system for the Solar Farm.
A none-penetrative system was used here using ballast to hold the system down. Our in house engineers used wind and loading calculations to ensure the correct amount of ballast was used to keep the panels in situ.
The system was designed to be installer friendly. The project manager was able to work from CAD drawings to facilitate a swift installation. This keeps the on site costs down and causes as little disturbance as possible to our client.
This 9.99kWp system, facing South West at a pitch of 15 degrees would generate 7712 kWh per year and would make an annual saving of 4.38 tonnes of CO2 emissions
Dr Kevin Hard, Managing Director for EvoEnergy, who are installed the Sheffield Solar Farm, said: “Solar electricity is seen by many as an important part of the UK's Future Energy Mix. The new UK financial incentives for solar photovoltaics are enabling our clients to not only save energy but provide a return of eight to nine per cent on their solar investment. We see landmark projects such as the Sheffield Solar Farm and our relationships with the University of Sheffield as important steps to advancing the UK's energy security and helping us to combat climate change.”
