A South Wales manufacturing company is now home to one of Wales' largest rooftop solar panel systems.
Asset International Ltd (Asset), which produces Weholite large diameter plastic pipes for the water, housing and construction industries, is installing 250 kWp of panels on its 6000 m2 factory.
The panels, supplied and installed by Brilliant Harvest Installations Ltd are expected to generate 220,000 Kilowatt Hours of electricity, saving around 126 tons of CO2 each year and offsetting up to10% of the factory's annual electricity usage.
The factory is likely to use 100% of the energy produced on site, which will help protect the business from rising energy costs for the next 40 to 50 years.
Graham Bennett, operations manager at Asset commented: "We have always been committed to reducing our carbon footprint, and follow a strict eco-friendly agenda, something demonstrated by the minimal carbon footprint of the Weholite HDPE pipes that we produce. By investing in such a large scale solar panel system we are making a real statement about our ecological intentions, and will be implementing these practices across all aspects of factory operations.
"Not only does it strengthen our environmental credentials; it also has significant potential to reduce costs at the plant. I strongly believe more businesses should look to greener and more efficient ways of generating energy."
Despite the common misconceptions on the affordability and performance of PV solar installations, the UK benefits from good levels of solar irradiation. Half of all production for the year will come from cloudy days but the generation will be nearly 8 times greater in June than in December.
Although there has been a rapid increase in the uptake of green energy in the UK in 2011, only 0.07% of all energy used was solar.
This announcement comes hot on the heels of the company's latest CEMARS accreditation by the Achilles carbon reduction programme, highlighting the company's commitment to its environmental impact.
