How many solar panels are needed to power a business?
Are you thinking of switching your business to solar power? How many solar panels are needed to power a business? Lets find out.
It is a question that we often get asked. Especially because we are one of the leading solar panel installers for businesses in Scotland. And as you may expect, the answer is – it varies.
This isn’t because we don’t want to answer the question but because there are so many variables to take on board which are unique to every business. To help expand on this, we will look at a few of the primary variables that can affect how many solar panels your business needs.
Space
It is an obvious starting point. How big is your business premises roof? Is it able to have solar panels installed on it? Not all solar panels have to be roof mounted. We have dealt with solar panel installation for businesses where the panels are fitted to a ground space on the business premises. To answer how many solar panels your business needs to power it, we first need to understand how many solar panels your business can have fitted. There is also the issue of solar panel size. You may have lots of roof space but is that roof space all entirely flat and even? This can determine how many and what size of solar panel can be fitted.
Consumption
What is the standard/average electricity consumption of your business? At Low Energy Services, as part of our Solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), we would normally follow the below steps:
Step 1
We will review your current electricity usage and pricing.
Step 2
With this data, we will provide you with a bespoke PPA proposal based around your businesses needs. It will clearly show the financial savings and carbon reductions that you can expect during the agreement.
Step 3
Once this is agreed upon, you then lease the roof space of your office building to us, thus entering into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).
Step 4
Our design team create the set layout for the new solar panel installation before the installation team complete the fitting of your new Solar PV system. All with minimal disruption to the day to day working activities of your business.
Step 5
You can now enjoy both reduced energy bills, no maintenance costs and stress free solar power operations for the agreed upon lease time of the PPA.
The local yield
This is a fancy way of saying how many daylight hours do you get. There is an assumption that solar panels need sunlight. They don’t. They need daylight. Modern solar panels installed by our team are incredibly efficient and even though Scotland is not famed for its glorious sunshine, it still gets plenty of daylight hours through the year. But in order to know how many solar panels are needed for your businesses, we still need to know the local yield.
What happens next?
When we know how large a roofing space your business has and we have calculated the local yield and confirmed your average/expected energy consumption requirements, we can then calculate how many solar panels are needed to power your business?
And then what?
Whether you are interested in a PPA option or you are wanting to know the upfront costs of solar panel installation for your business in Scotland, the next step to take is to get in touch. Simply click the button below to go to our enquiries page.
What is Solar PPA?
The installation of solar panels can require initial investment capital which can put some companies off the idea. What if there was another way?
A PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) is a financial agreement which allows companies like yours to purchase solar energy generated electricity from companies like us with NO UPFRONT COSTS.
This allows you to take advantage of the many benefits of solar energy without having to invest in the initial purchasing and installation costs. It also means that you do not have to worry about the maintenance of the solar panel system as we take care of that as well.
Renewable Energy Specialists
