Clive Soanes Broilers Limited is part of a large family-owned food production and agricultural business based in Middleton-on-the-Wolds. The site at Horn Hill is a standalone broiler production unit that produces approximately 725,000 chickens each year. The entire output from Horn Hill is processed just two miles away in Middleton-on-the-Wolds and marketed nationally to retail and catering businesses.

Challenge:

At Horn Hill, there is already a 50kW solar array that was installed approximately 10 years ago. Whilst this array continues to generate a valuable amount of green electricity, the site still imports over 90,000kWh of grid-supplied electricity each year. The challenge was to install an array to offset the electricity still being purchased and not interfere with the old FIT connected array.

Solution:

The recently demolished and rebuilt poultry site had an area of vacant land that had been used to store the arisings from the new buildings. Once levelled and compacted the site was of sufficient size to accommodate an additional 50kW of solar PV. The new array was wired up to send electricity to the site in a way that left the old array able to claim FITs.