Leominster, Herefordshire, October 2011

 

Overview

 

Leominster Community Solar aims to generate solar energy on a community scale to provide the opportunity for local people to invest in clean, green energy, even if their roof is unsuitable or they don't own their home - meaning they too can benefit from the Feed-in Tariff.

 

In 2011 Southern Solar were asked to help install a community owned solar system. The 49kW solar photovoltaic array is installed on Bridge Street Sports Centre in Leominster. The system was placed on a curved tennis hall roof, causing a number of complications to the standard roof installation and the required backup generators.

 

Our Solution

 

Considerable effort was put into the design for the community project to ensure the best system was put onto the complex roof. The design was undertaken by our head electrical engineer who was on site during installation to guarantee a strong and quality installation.

The design involved 10 strings of panels connected in series, running to 2 inverters. Sub distribution boards were also installed by our teams for the inverters with a cable running back to the main leisure centre building. Backup generators were also required for the G59 protective relay.

 

The installation also required specialist stepped scaffolding, which had to be moved part way through, due to the dangers of the curved roof. This specialist scaffolding meant that the project had to be programmed very accurately to ensure that all works had been done in time for the relocation of the scaffolding to the other side of the roof. There was also a very tight deadline due to the on-going FITs review at the time, and Southern Solar worked out of usual hours to ensure that the project got the best rate.