SBC Renewables Design And Plan The Largest Single Span Roof PV Site In The UK
SBC Renewables (formerly The Solar Building Company) has designed and led the process for development of the largest single span roof PV site in the UK. The array will have an installed capacity of 6.068MWp. Construction has started with completion scheduled for early 2015.
SBC Renewables was selected, through a competitive process run by Marks & Spencer, to design the array. "We chose The Solar Building Company as they offered us the best combination of power, price, and certainty of project execution," commented Hugo Adams, Director of Property at M&S.
A key feature of the project involves the installation of a special SBC engineered frame onto the 900,000 sq ft (8,370 sq m - 20 acres) roof. Challenges included bridging areas where service loadings would normally have limited solar panel deployment.
Aside from the skylight areas and maintenance walkways, virtually all the roof surface will be covered with solar panels. The panels chosen for the project are ET Solar 250W poly (24,320 in total) along with 90 Kaco 50kW string inverters and 4
Kaco 18kW inverters. All the generated power will be used by the fully automated distribution centre, further promoting the building's already strong green credentials.
"We are proud to be part of M&S's industry leading Plan A sustainability programme. It is very exciting to be developing a single roof-mounted solar park"“ something one would normally associate with a ground-based site," commented
Richard Haywood, CIO of SBC Renewables.
The funding of this project is provided by Amber Infrastructure and arranged by funding advisors Amber ISIS Renewable Energy Limited. Construction is being led by Mark Group Limited.
