Le Gallais Self Storage has recently invested in solar energy as part of our plan to reduce the carbon footprint of our business.
We had been looking at solar power for some years following discussions with local specialist Mark Brandon of Sunworks, and decided to wait until we recovered the roofs at our Hilgrove Street Storage facility before installing an initial 24 new photovoltaic solar panels on top; work started to recover the roofs in February 2020.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 hampered progress with the lockdown putting works on hold meaning a 3 month programme of works increased to 6, but in spite of setbacks, we completed the solar installation in August.
The weather this summer has so far been warm and sunny and initial monitoring tells us that we have the ability to harvest up to 50KWh per day whilst also displaying the amount of carbon emissions saved and equivalent trees planted. The investment payback is estimated at 15 years.
The screenshot above shows the data dashboard display taken on a cloudy day to show the contrast between energy harvesting and output. There's a live link on our Self Storage website to the data dashboard so that our customers can see the amount of energy the solar panels generate.
We are now well on the way to the business becoming carbon neutral, and we are looking at further investment in additional panels to supply the offices in our adjoining buildings and eventually even sending power back into the grid.