Garador, one of the UK’s first garage door manufacturers to start using a renewable power source for its factory, has announced that its solar based energy system is outperforming all expectations.
Last summer, Garador installed a vast array of 1600 solar panels on the roof of its Somerset factory as part of the company’s long-term strategy to reduce the company’s carbon footprint. Initially, the solar panels performed well as expected, but energy contribution was predicted to drop in the shorter darker days of winter.
In fact, the latest reports coming in now show that even during the winter months, Garador’s new renewable energy system has not only continued to make a significant contribution towards providing power for the Garador factory, but the system has in fact been steadily outperforming predictions and expectations.
Garador’s Managing Director, Jon Watson says: “With the latest figures in, we are delighted to see that our solar energy system is continuing to make a strong contribution to our power requirements. Obviously, we had been prepared for changes in input in shorter winter days, but the latest results are very pleasing and a good endorsement of the entire system.”
Garador has installed sophisticated monitoring equipment and specialised software to keep track of power supply and usage, and while the company currently use solar power only for their production machinery, with the good performance figures now coming in they may in the future look at installing a battery bank to store surplus electricity generation.
“With the strong benefits of helping to reduce our carbon footprint and also keeping our overall manufacturing costs down; without doubt our plan last year to invest in solar energy was the right decision,” said Jon.