We have recently completed a 50kW commercial installation at Portway Domestic Appliances Ltd., an appliance warehouse, in Andover.
Solar Star Power’s electrical and roofing teams were on site for three days to complete the installation on a two-storey high building, made up of one large room. The roofing team accessed the roof using a large diesel scissor lift.
The three-phase system comprises of 10 strings, 120 x 405kW panels and was mounted on a flat roof using an east/west pyramid kit. The installation will generate approximately 46,510kW hours annually for Portway.
The first job, for the Solar Star Power roofing team, was to measure the roof and mark out the position of the panels. The team then built the aluminium framework for the panels, which was ballasted with concrete blocks.
Whilst the panels were being installed, Solar Star Power’s electrical team worked on the cable containment down the outside of the building and through to the mains room to house the DC cabling to where the 50kW inverter would be sited.
Each positive and negative string was connected to the inverter from each set of panels. The AC cables were fed from a busbar trunking through a 100-amp switched fuse isolator, which then connected through the generator meter to the inverter.
The electrical team organised a convenient timeslot to switch off the power with Portway, the power was off between 12pm and 1pm, enabling everyone to have an hour lunch break!
The installation went smoothly, the electrical incoming supply entered the building directly underneath the panels, which made for a slick installation.
Solar Star Power is MCS certified which guarantees to our customers that we install to the industry-expected level of quality every time. We contacted Portway’s Distribution Network Operator (DNO) on their behalf, for approval, and now they are able to benefit from exporting any excess power back to the grid.
The panels used are J Solar, all black, with a 25-year warranty. The 50kW Solis inverter has a warranty of 10-year. There is also a 25-year warranty on workmanship.