Earlswood Garden Centre

The Client

Earlswood Garden & Landscape Centre near Solihull was established in 1995 by brothers Dave and Steve White as Earlswood Nurseries Ltd. The site has grown and developed considerably, now with a restaurant, purpose-built buildings for concessions, improved plant centre and a modern workshop with a new site entrance and fence line.

The 7.5-acre garden centre opens 7 days a week, including bank holidays, with 35 full-time and a number of part-time staff in its retail, manufacturing, transport, horticultural and contracting operations, and the company operates a variety of delivery vehicles across the Midlands.

In developing the centre’s offering, the team have been very careful in reducing the impact on the environment by making use of eco-friendly technology to include ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps, natural water supplies and the latest HGVs producing the lowest possible emissions. The company also has 4 electric vehicles and plans to expand the range over time.

The garden centre consumes 185.86 MWh of electricity annually with recent energy-demand increase from low-carbon electrical heat pumps and is fully committed to reducing its environmental footprint. Recently, it has opted for LED lighting across the site to help reduce impacts on climate from carbon emissions associated with energy use.

SaveMoneyCutCarbon first carried out a desktop feasibility analysis, which identified that offsetting grid energy with solar power production would deliver the maximum economic benefit, as any revenue provided from exported generation would be a maximum 5.5p per kWh, substantially less than the utility tariff.

The initial desktop survey was followed by detailed site surveys, and full proposal that was accepted by the garden centre management.

The SaveMoneyCutCarbon team then fully managing the installation of 180 panels on a roof-mounted system. The installation is optimised for greatest yield and maximum generation together with full monitoring, as opposed to a standard string system.

Offsetting grid energy is where Earlswood will receive the maximum economic benefit, as currently the revenue provided for exported generation is, at most 5.5p per kWh which is substantially less than that of the utility tariff. Our team here at SaveMoneyCutCarbon,

The system is designed to maximise self-consumption of energy generated and so significantly  reduce energy bills, with the facility to export electricity at advantageous rates to the National Grid through the local energy supplier.

All installed products and services are Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) approved. The monocrystalline photovoltaic modules offer the highest efficiency cells and lower degradation rates, constructed from a single piece of silicon, making it easier for electricity to flow through. They have a pyramid cell pattern which offers a larger surface area, enabling the panels to collect a greater amount of energy from the sun’s rays.

The system also benefits from Solar Edge inverters with optimisers behind each panel. All inverters are ready to be connected to batteries in the future in order to maximise export and self-consumption as needed during the night.

Optimisers give a minimum of a yield increase of on average 10%, provide added safety features, panel level monitoring showing generation data assisting maintenance and an extra two years on the inverter warranty. The optimisers allow the panels to perform independently so the strings are not brought down to the lowest performing panel as in a standard string inverter set up.

The system is classed as a Safe DC system. A standard string inverter set up cannot shut down the array so will typically have live cabling up to 750V at any point during daylight, the optimisers on the roof allow the SolarEdge system to shut down the panel output to 1 volt per optimiser, making each string circa 20 Volts making it the safest and most productive system on the market.

• Trina Solar 425W panels
• Solar Edge Optimisers
• Renusol Metasole+ mounting system
• SolarEdge Manager 50k full unit inverter
• SolarEdge Inverters
• Metering and monitoring packs.

The system is also future-proof and the centre is looking into the installation of additional solar panels with battery storage for night-time usage and to charge the garden centre’s current electric vehicles as well as providing EV charging services for customers.

Over the next 25 years, it’s estimated that Earlswood Nurseries will make £896,563 in cost savings with CO2 reductions of  375,000 kg, the equivalent of 931,688 miles in a petrol-fuel car.