Solar & Turbine Project, Aberdeenshire

A farm in Aberdeenshire decided that they wanted to become off-grid and create their own independent energy system following the significant increase in energy prices over the past few years. Their goal is to achieve 100% renewable. This is no mean feat for a working farm and we had to design and propose an energy system that would enable to achieve this.  

One of the great benefits of the farm’s location is it’s incredibly windy in that part of the country. Our proposal included solar panels, two 7kWh wind turbines, and a battery system. However, it was the scale of this project that meant it stood out. For example, it requires 32 solar modules, two 7kWh wind turbines which would make up for the deficit of solar energy during the winter,  and 20 kWh of battery storage. 

During this project, we will have to install the solar modules using an elevated ground-based mounting system. We will also be building a timber framed outbuilding which will store the inverters and battery units whilst also providing an elevated position for the turbines to be mounted, accessed, and easily serviced. 

One of the challenges of this project was access to reliable communications because of its remote location. As a result, we installed a Tesla Sky link satellite-based internet service to allow real-time monitoring of the system from back in Edinburgh. This will not only allow us to monitor the system performance but also troubleshoot and diagnose any potential issues that may arise over time. 

The result will be an energy system that will offset the farm bills by 108% per year. This considerable system will have paid for itself in approximately 10.6 years.

Please see extracts from our generation calculations below.