Porsche – Reading

About the client

Formed in 2003, Porsche Retail Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Porsche Cars Great Britain.

It includes two Porsche Exclusive Flagship Dealers (Hatfield and Mayfair), one of only three Classic Porsche Partner Centres in the UK (Hatfield) and the only 918 Spyder specialist Centre in the country (Reading) and a showroom and Aftersales facility in West London

They are dedicated to the principle that all Porsche owners should receive an outstanding customer experience.

Drivers for the project

To reduce Carbon Emissions and help save on energy costs.
 

Solution

As part of the initial design phase our design engineering team reviewed the clients half hourly electrical data in order to size the solar system appropriately. A number of options were presented to the client based on current and future electrical consumption usage on site. A 96.46 kWp system was chosen, comprising of 364 No. 265Wp panels and 2 No. 36kW Huawei inverters. Suitable isolators, a new dedicated PV distribution board and generation meter were installed and fitted seamlessly into the sites existing electrical network.

The system will produce enough electricity (79,181 kWh per annum) to power around 21 residential homes per year or power 36 electric cars. After 25 years in operation the project is predicted to have saved 155.3 tonnes of CO2e, an equivalent of 803,530 fossil fuelled car miles, 102 fossil fuelled cars off the road and 621 pine trees plante

Challenges

Inverters had to be internally posing some issues with heat dissipation. This was overcome by installing them on the northern side of the building on a high wall and choosing an appropriate room with adequate ventilation. Cable runs were installed successfully despite having to go down an extremely tight and confined riser.

Results

The initial programme was to complete the installation within one week and we successfully delivered a fully commissioned system following a client handover within this period.