St John’s Road
The Project
Towards the end of 2023 we were asked to produce a proposal for an old Victorian property in North Somerset. The customer wanted to reduce their electricity bills as they had a high electricity usage and regularly charge and EV.
The property has a large roof space with lots of potential for solar and a high energy yields throughout the year, with space externally for an inverter and battery storage system close to the homes incoming electricity supply.
The challenge would be fitting a large number of panels to such a variety of roof spaces, with different orientations and array sizes whilst making the install as attractive as possible
The Solution
Our design included 24 x 430 Watt panels over 4 roof spaces to create a 10.32kW system size. Each panel would be optimised to ensure peak production of the system and connected to a suitable inverter. Calculations show that the system should produce 8,882kWh of electricity annually equating to roughly 110% of the customers energy production allowing them to export when necessary.
For the battery we designed a Tesla Powerwall and Gateway, this would allow the whole house to be backed up in the event of a power cut and, with 13.5kWh of storage, provide ample power for the customer overnight when the solar is not producing.
The Installation
This install took place over the space of a week with the house surrounded by scaffolding allowing us to install the 24 panels efficiently despite the lack of space on site. Each panel was optimised and tested to ensure production with the panels being bird guarded to prevent birds nesting under the panels and minimising the risk of a fire.
The battery and inverter were installed externally close to the main incoming electricity supply which kept the down time of the electricity supply to the house to a minimum. The Powerwall was connected to Tesla’s network and commissioned successfully, fully charging and discharging for calibration and submitted to Tesla for consideration as an outstanding install.
The Results
The system is likely to save the customer almost £3,000 a year on electricity cost, and with an investment of £18k should have paid for itself in just over 5 years. The customer has an option to switch a flexible tariff to maximise savings by using cheap overnight rates and has an option to install a second Powerwall in the future taking advantage of the 0% VAT currently being offered on battery storage installations.