Ridge Lane – Nottingham
The customer
After purchasing their potential dream home during lockdown, Alan & Jan’s plans were set to turn the house into a haven for their extended family to enjoy. One thing that was alarming early on was the extremely high cost of energy consumed by the property, which features an inside swimming pool.
The first priority for the property was to make the home as energy efficient as possible. Improved insulation, solar panels and air source heat pumps were researched by Alan, who had recently retired from an electrical engineering background. “I found it very easy to get quotes for solar panels, but when I asked a technical question, I soon realized that this was not going to be simple. This is a large site, with 3 phase and single phase power supplies, as well as several roofs facing different directions, which most of the solar salespeople weren’t able to provide a detailed quote for.”
“Kembla were very different, they understood what was needed, made sensible suggestions, answered my questions and came back with good suggestions for an optimal installation.”
The challenge
This was probably one of the most complex designs to date, due to the sophisticated layout and appliances being used on site.
The design spread across 3 separate buildings (pool house, garage and annexe) and across single and three phase power supplies.
Shading also played a factor in the design and so Kembla recommended SolarEdge to help mitigate any performance issues, whilst offering extensive control capabilities.
What we did
Once the final design had been agreed, Kembla installed the following equipment –
A 41.87kWp SolarEdge system with a 24 kWh BYD battery storage facility, this consisted of the following:-
106 x Jinko 395w N-type all black mono (25 year product warranty / 30 year performance
4 SolarEdge inverters all with RS485 communication
24 Kwh BYD premium storage
3 Smart energy relays to control heat pumps and large loads in the property
SolarEdge Modbus to read import and export
The difference made
This system now installed is expected to generate circa 29MWH per year which will offset 9.13 tonnes of CO2 per year which is equivalent to planting 420 trees annually.
With the recent energy crisis, this could not have been better timing
Key benefits of the system
SolarEdge optimizers allow us to monitor each panel and mitigate against any shading
24kWH BYD battery – Once the demand of the property has been met our client will charge up the batteries to use of an evening. We have also programmed the battery to charge from the grid during the Octopus Energy Go tarrifs at £0.05p p/kWh.
SolarEdge smart energy relays, here we installed three relays. One to the air source heat pump for the pool, the second to the solar-assisted hot water heater and the third will control the air source heat pump for the main house. Once sufficient export is noticed the system will divert power to the pumps and turn them on. Another great benefit of having the relays is they can be controlled from one central application.
What they said
Alan & Jan said:
“The installation was very well carried out, the roofing team did a great job in putting the panels where we needed them , facing South, East and West, they adjusted the locations to give the optimum generation as well as looking great, very happy with the bird-proofing as well.
The electrical team really knew their stuff, making the complete system communicate perfectly, which gives us great info through the SolarEdge app. Nothing was too much trouble.
So far, our energy usage has reduced by over 50%, which is better than we expected and with the recent, crazy increases in energy prices, our payback period will reduce dramatically. We are using much less gas as well, because the Air Source Heat Pumps are using solar energy automatically.
Declan oversaw everything, we are very satisfied with Kembla and would recommend them without hesitation.”
