Commercial Solar & Battery Installation for a Dairy Farm in Shaftesbury, Dorset

The result

A 69 kWp commercial solar and battery system designed to reduce operating costs for a dairy farm using approximately 42,000 kWh of electricity a year.

The system is estimated to generate 64,516 kWh annually, reduce electricity costs by around 64% and deliver an approximate £11,300 financial benefit in year one, with a five-year payback.

At a glance

The client’s objective

The farm was using approximately 42,000 kWh of electricity each year, with significant daytime demand from farming machinery.

The client wanted to use solar generation to reduce those operating costs and become less reliant on grid electricity.

Battery storage was also included so that a proportion of the electricity generated during the day could be retained for use during the evening and early morning.

The project was financed through one of Phase Energy’s finance partners.

The Phase Energy solution

We designed a 69 kWp commercial solar PV system using 150 AIKO Neostar 460W panels.

The south-facing farm building provided the principal roof area for the installation and allowed the system to be designed around the site’s electricity consumption.

The array was paired with a Fox ESS 50kW V Series inverter and two Fox ESS EP12 batteries, providing approximately 23 kWh of storage.

This gives the farm the ability to use solar electricity directly during periods of high daytime demand while storing surplus generation for use later.

Why the system was designed this way

The system was designed around the farm’s existing electricity consumption, with Phase Energy aiming to apply for the maximum generation capacity available through a standard G99 application.

The south-facing barn roof provided the most suitable area for the solar array.

Battery storage was deliberately sized to provide a substantial starting capacity without unnecessarily oversizing the system. Further storage can potentially be added later if monitoring of the farm’s consumption demonstrates a benefit.

Installation

The main challenge on this project was maintaining access to the cattle housing barn throughout the installation.

Scaffolding was required around a building that still needed to remain operational, so access routes for livestock and normal farm activity had to be considered carefully.

Phase Energy, the client and the scaffolding contractor coordinated the access arrangements before work began, helping ensure that the installation could proceed without creating major obstructions to day-to-day farming operations.

The project was completed over one week.