Liberty Wines harvests £86,480 in energy savings
Liberty Wines, a leading UK wine distributor, has cut its electricity costs by £86,480 in just 10 months following the installation of an innovative DC-optimised rooftop solar system. Designed and installed by renewable energy specialist Insight Energy using SolarEdge inverter technology, the system powers Liberty Wines’ Basingstoke warehouse and its electric vehicle (EV) fleet, while meeting strict insurance requirements for storing large volumes of flammable stock – a challenge faced by many warehouse operators.
This project represents a significant milestone for Liberty Wines, which initially thought installing solar on the warehouse would not be possible. The company had planned to install solar during the building’s construction using inverter technology from another manufacturer. However, its plan had to be paused after its insurer raised safety concerns about the large volumes of flammable alcohol stored on site.
To overcome this challenge, Liberty Wines partnered with Insight Energy, which designed the system using SolarEdge DC-optimised inverter technology. The SolarEdge solution includes a suite of built-in safety features which are designed to provide optimal protection without the need for additional hardware. These include Sense Connect arc-fault detection and prevention technology, and SafeDC™, which is designed to automatically reduces panel voltage to touch-safe levels to provide safe roof access for maintenance teams and firefighters.
“Insurance challenges are common when installing PV on warehouses, particularly those used to store flammable stock,” says Kristian Day, Managing Director of Insight Energy. “Liberty Wines needed a solution that was safe, reliable and efficient. SolarEdge technology enabled us to meet all three requirements while also giving the company full visibility and control over its energy use.”
The solar installation includes a 521kWp solar array comprising 1,005 panels, which are upgraded to smart panels with SolarEdge Power Optimisers, and four 90kW SolarEdge Synergy inverters. In the 10 months since it was commissioned, the system has generated 376MWh of clean electricity, offsetting 63% of the warehouse’s energy use.
The solar system is managed through the SolarEdge ONE for C&I energy optimisation platform, which intelligently coordinates energy generation and consumption across the warehouse building and EV chargers based on solar production, operational priorities and user preferences. Liberty Wines is leveraging this capability to schedule EV charging during periods of peak solar production, maximising self-consumption of solar energy and driving the project’s rapid return on investment.
“As a company committed to sustainable operations, Liberty Wines is taking a long-term, data-driven approach to optimising its energy management,” says Day. “The SolarEdge system’s monitoring platform shows exactly how much solar energy each panel generates and how much energy is actually being used. Liberty Wines is already using 63% of the solar energy produced onsite, which is very high. The company is now leveraging this data to assess whether they should add a battery. Based on the system’s performance to date, a battery could pay for itself in as little as two years by capturing energy that is currently exported to the grid and storing it for later use.”
As with all its projects, Insight Energy used the SolarEdge Designer tool to plan the warehouse installation and to showcase to the client how the system would perform.
“Customers often think the performance forecasts we provide for SolarEdge systems are too good to be true,” Day explains. “We use the SolarEdge Designer tool to design the solar system to meet our clients’ exact requirements, while its modelling capabilities enable us to clearly demonstrate how and why each system will perform as predicted. As an installer, it’s an invaluable tool in our toolkit.”
