Jul 27 2011
SEH Commercial’s Energy Solutions team have recently proved itself by finding the ideal solution for a tricky solar panel installation on a log cabin for customers.
SEH Commercial’s customer, Mr & Mrs Diver, have created a unique guest quarters styled as a log cabin. It measures some 5m x 5.7m and is situated around 15m from their main house. SEH Commercial’s Simon Fowler explains the challenges:
“Originally sold as 12-panels to be on one roof, our survey said that this wasn’t going to be possible due to the size of the roof. However, the roof has a perfect east-west split on its pitch so we looked at the option of 6 Mitsubishi 225Wp PV panels on each side. With this arrangement our calculations indicated that the best return on the Diver’s investment was to have 2 separate Fronius IG15 inverters, rather than have 1 inverter with 2-strings and an MPP (Maximum Peak Power) tracker.”
The installation itself was not straight-forward as the roof is fully sealed and has 50mm of insulation between rafters which were difficult to find with the rubberised roof covering in place of a regular felt.
With a new distribution board fitted in the cabin, SEH Commercial’s sister company, SEHBAC Groundworks, created a 20m trench back to the house and armoured cable was laid back to the main building giving the Divers the added benefit of a properly certified electrical supply to the cabin for lighting and small-power fed by the main incoming supply for the house. The power generated by the panels feeds back to the main house giving free electricity during the day.
SEH Commercial’s solar PV supply partner, Mitsubishi Electric, is a well established manufacturer in the electrical and electronic industry and has been active in photovoltaics since the 1970’s. Mitsubishi Electric has the experience, knowledge, quality, performance and brand to meet customer’s expectations.
Simon Fowler continues: “The Fronius inverters really do make this project generate phenomenally well, with over 100kWh’s of electricity generated in 5-days, even with inclement conditions. On our recommendation, Mr Diver has been very busy cutting back all his trees to ensure there are no shading issues.”
The Divers are delighted with the system and can’t wait to get their first payment from the Feed-in Tariff.