Eastbourne 27.2kW

Eastbourne 27.2kW case study

As part of a multi-million pound renovation of Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park and Congress Theater, solar was added onto a new building joining the Congress Theater and the 19th century Winter Garden Theater.

To fit the solar on the roof space available 2 different mounting systems were used. One was our flat roof TRIC F Duo system, this was used on the front and the back of the building. In addition we used A-Frames to mount solar on a steel structure housing the air conditioning units.

The highest possible output from solar was needed, due to the limited space the customer opted to go for LG 340W modules, these are high wattage and very efficient allowing us to make the most of roof space dedicated to solar.

Working alongside many other trades always presents a challenge, we overcame this and completed the installation with minimal disruption to the other teams completing their jobs. Working together, and being flexible on a site of this scale is key. We had to install certain areas before stopping to allow the air conditioning team to complete their part before then continuing on and finishing off. This was the case across the whole roof, as well as being flexible to come and go around performance times in the theater.

The TRIC F Duo system is a ballast mounted system. As this property is near the coast we had to use a lot of ballast, over 4 pallets of high density blocks! To ensure all the ballast was mounted securely underneath and between the modules we developed a new product, the Duo Ballast Bars. Ordinarily we wouldn’t put ballast between module rows, but the requirements for the project exceeded what we could physically fit under the array (our install team are certainly a bit fitter and stronger now!).

The 80 LG modules are optimised using SolarEdge optimisation, and are connected into a SolarEdge 3phase string inverter. To meet the project requirements all of the cables were trunked in armored conduit, our electrical team worked closely with the site electricians who’s job it was to run the AC electrics and data cabling.