When it comes to investing in our businesses, we are perhaps slightly more wary than we have been in the past. From the media and other business owners we hear stories that make us cautious as to how and where we invest.

Solar PV, as we know, makes good financial sense and the returns result not only in monthly savings on energy bills, but exceed the initial capital outlay by four to five times. It’s just about taking that initial plunge. I can extol the virtues in great detail, but ultimately it’s the individual’s money and risk.

Reduce energy costs with solar PV

A genuine energy bill from a solar PV customer

Sometimes the proof is in the pudding, so let’s look at one recent solar installation. This involved 50kWs of solar photo voltaic panels (PV) between 30kWs and 50kWs, which tends to be the optimum sized system for many of our small to medium sized business customers.

This includes between 110 and 180 panels, ground or roof mounted and costs approximately £25,000 – £45,000 plus VAT. The Disappearing bill! On the right, you’ll see a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ solar PV energy bill. There’s a big difference, the bill dropped from £2,583 for June 2017 to just £871 for June 2018. And it will continue this way for years to come.

Business owners can expect a return on investment within five to seven years and for the following 25+ years, a considerable saving on energy costs every month of every year. A nice bonus is that this saving increases over time, as electricity prices inevitably rise.

Are these bills real, I hear you ask? Very much so. In fact, this bill is from a well-known business which many of you will have used at one time or another. If you have stopped for refreshments at any of our stores or have been to an agricultural show in the South West, you may well have enjoyed food and drink from Kenniford Farm.

Solar PV for Business

Liz and Andrew Freemantle who run Kenniford are, to put it mildly, very happy with the outcome on their investment so early on in its lifetime! When we spoke to Andrew at the Kingsbridge Show in 2017, he was not convinced that solar PV was a good idea for his business, but we agreed to conduct a free site survey to look at its viability.

We then gave Andrew personalised proposal, plus some financial modelling which showed solar PV to be a cost effective business decision. We helped arrange a straightforward finance deal as part of the package and carried out the full installation of the 50kW solar array. I’m pretty sure this rate of return speaks to us all and is certainly paying dividends for Kenniford.