The Farm

The brief

Our client runs a working farm with a holiday-let business attached - multiple buildings, multiple meters, and the kind of daytime electrical demand that makes solar a no-brainer. The challenge wasn't whether to install solar, it was where. Several of the roofs weren't suitable, so we designed the arrays around a south-facing field bank instead of forcing them onto buildings they didn't belong on.

What we installed

• 38 × Trina Vertex S+ 440W dual-glass N-Type panels

• Growatt string inverters feeding the array's main generation into the site - 16.72 kWp total

• GivEnergy AC charger (3kW) and GivEnergy All-in-One providing battery storage and intelligent charge management

• Custom galvanised steel ground-mount frame, gravel-bedded, with weatherproofed and bonded electrics on the array itself

• G99 application and certification handled in-house.

The mixed hardware was a deliberate choice. Growatt handled the heavy lifting on inverter capacity at a sensible cost-per-kW, and the GivEnergy All-in-One provided the battery intelligence and tariff optimisation the client wanted on top. The result is a system specified for what the farm actually needs, rather than what a single manufacturer's catalogue happens to sell.

Why ground-mount, not roof?

For this site, ground-mount was the right call for three reasons: the field had unobstructed south-facing aspect, several existing roofs couldn't carry the load economically, and the client wanted headroom to add capacity later without recommissioning roof scaffolding.

A ground-mount on red Devon soil with livestock around it carries very different considerations from a roof install. Ground screws went in clean, the cable runs were sleeved against weather and stock damage, and the whole installation sits low enough in the field to stay invisible from the lane.

The result

• 17,840kWh generated per year (design estimate)

• £3,122 saved per year on electricity bills

• Battery storage smoothing daytime generation into evening demand

• Holiday-let business and main farmhouse running on solar through the productive months

• Capacity headroom built in for future expansion.