Peak District sheep farm and camp site go green with Solar PV
A Peak District sheep farmer is making healthy returns, calculated to be 16.6% gross, from a solar PV system that is reducing energy and solid fuel bills, by generating electricity, heating water and powering EV chargers!
When Edward Piekos wanted to invest in more Solar PV for his Peak District farm, he found Geo Green Power was his perfect partner. Edward explained: “I wanted something quite specific, we had a 10kW system installed nine years ago, so I knew a bit about solar, but with this new investment I wanted a much bigger 50kW scheme, and I wanted it to run immersion heaters for hot water and EV chargers.
“Most of our 110 acre farm is dedicated to sheep farming, but four acres is dedicated to a small campsite which has spacious pitches, well maintained facilities and access to our beautiful surrounding countryside. We want to make our campsite as sustainable as possible, so using renewable energy and reducing our CO2 emissions was very important to us.
“When Geo Green Power’s Jack Hiley came to survey our property he was incredibly supportive of what we wanted to achieve, he gave us a great price for our solar installation and was confident that they could configure a system that met all the specific requirements we had. It seemed he wasn’t able to say no to anything!”
Geo Green Power designed a system that used the whole of the roof space available to install 50kW of Solar PV panels. Electricity is used for the farmhouse, farm and campsite which includes electric hook-ups for visitors. Any excess electricity produced is diverted to immersion heaters which heat water for the main house and camp site facilities. On top of the utility bill savings, the installation will save at least 19 tonnes of CO2 every year.
Keen to grow the environmentally conscious camping business Edward wanted to offer customers the opportunity to charge electric vehicles at his site, but didn’t want to engage a third party company to deliver metering and payment. Again, Geo Green Power rose to the challenge and installed two EV chargers which had a 3 phase meter which allowed him to provide a set amount of electricity using his own payment metering system.
Edward added: “The EV charging will become a real unique offer for us, and I’m excited to see it in action this season, and to fully understand what the 50kW system will do to our summer high season electricity costs. I’m very confident, as even over the winter we have seen a reduction in the wood and propane gas we’ve been using to heat water at our site, our investment is already paying off and it’s certainly reducing the amount of CO2 we generate.”
Geo Green Power have been a true partner in helping Edward achieve his renewable energy ambitions to date, and are looking forward to working with him on future projects.