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Off-grid community project – Friends of Harlesden Town Garden

The Friends of Harlesden Town Garden need a great new system for a shipping container community building that will power electric gardening tools including: lawn mowers, microwave, kettle, strimmers, hedge cutters, fridge and freezer, security lighting, indoor lighting, CCTV system, WiFi, Computers & TVs.

All off-grid equipment was located in a separate plant room and the 5kW inverter was installed directly above the batteries; contained in their own bespoke battery box. The battery housing box protects from heavy objects that could be dropped on the batteries (items across the battery terminals will cause mini fireworks display!) or spillages of liquids, plus this enables warm insulation around the batteries to maintain performance in lower temperatures.

The Friends of Harlesden Town Garden approached Off-Grid Installer as they had a rather large electricity connection quote. The local district network operator (DNO) had quoted £16,000 to connect their newly built Grand Designs inspired shipping container community building to the national grid. Having a very limited budget, Off-Grid Installer came up with an affordable off-grid energy solution.

The panels had to be located on the roof of the shipping container building and the mounting method could not permeate the rubber and roof felt material. Also, the solar panel plastic buckets would not fit without casting shadows onto the panels. So, The Friends of Harlsden Town Garden built a wooden frame with the plentiful supply of wood they had left over from the construction of the container building. Off-grid Installer then used a short rail clamp system and the panels would lie flat on the roof.

By lying the solar panels flat, 10% of your annual generation can be lost but all round day performance improves (generate a good rate for most of the day rather a high rate for a short period like south facing solar panels). Regular cleaning of the solar panels will be needed as they won’t self clean on an angle below 12 degrees. 

The installed system specification

• 8 × Longi 305 Watt monocrystalline solar panels
  making a total of 2440 Watts or 2.44kW
• 1 × 5kW combi inverter with Bluetooth (for app connection)
• 4 × Gel GTP 210Ah batteries (total energy stored 10.08kWh) designed to last 10 years of use.
• 1 × bespoke wooden battery box
• 1 × Kraus & Naimer DC isolator
• 1 × Kraus & Naimer AC 240V isolator
• 1 × Fuse switch disconnector (acts as battery fuse and DC battery isolator)
• Generator feed port connection (command socket)

https://www.harlesdentowngarden.co.uk

Get your own system

This off-grid solar system came in at around a third of the grid connection price! Check our silver kit below or contact us if you have any enquiries.

View our Silver DIY kit

A 24,000 litre (24 m³) septic tank was buried in the ground because the cost of connecting to the local sewage infrastructure was too high.

and lights are on!

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