Lindley Liberal Club is a prominent hub for both its members and the local community. The organisation had been considering the installation of solar panels for a number of years, carefully weighing up their options alongside the cost of investment, the environmental benefits and potential returns. The decision to go solar became an obvious one when the surge in energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine saw the potential return on investment rise, making it the perfect time to transition.
Built in 1887, this 19th century building is situated in a prominent location within Lindley. As such, it was important to preserve the character of the building for the local community. With this in mind we advised the use of Jinko all black solar panels, which lend themselves well to the aesthetic of any building. The result is that panels blend nicely against the dark roof slates, allowing the club to demonstrate their commitment to reducing reliance on fossil fuels whilst maintaining the aesthetic appeal of the building.
As the property has a traditional slate roof, we opted to fix the panels to the wooden rafters using Renusol Hooks & Rails alongside Genius SolarFlash kits. This method of installation allows the brackets to move independently in the wind without damaging the slate, and the intuitive hood flashing system installed around each bracket preserves the integrity of the roof, preventing water ingress.
The position of the chimney to the west of the roof meant that some of the panels would be shaded at certain times of day. To overcome the reduced output this would cause we installed Tigo optimisers alongside the panels.
Using optimisers such as these mitigates the negative impact that shading may have on the performance of the system. The Tigo optimisers combat energy loss using a method called “Impedance Matching”. This is where the optimisers work alongside the inverter’s Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) system to allow both strong and weak modules to perform at the levels dictated by site conditions (shading, clouds, etc). Impedance Matching allows each panel to deliver the best yields possible throughout the day, preventing underperforming panels from reducing the system’s overall performance. Whilst optimisers are not always needed, this was a case where their use adds real value.
Whilst we generally advise that clients install a battery storage system alongside their solar panels, it was decided that more data was needed to determine if they would be cost effective in this case. As such, Solis Export Power Manager was installed alongside a Solis Inverter to monitor energy usage across the full site. This data will then be reviewed after a year so that the client can make a fully informed decision.
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