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Off-grid Glamping site installation

The Thornton’s: Rebecca and Andrew Thornton of Manor farm are currently transforming their farm to a more sustainable future. With the advent of brexit, future prospects of no EU farming subsidy in the next five years and the fact that arable farming is thrashing the hell out their land, the Thornton’s decided to change their course forever. They are currently changing their farm into a nature reserve glamping and camping site.

The Thornton’s contacted Off-Grid Installer to find about our system designs, price and timescale. Off-grid installer offered a sensible solution to meet the Thornton’s requirements, needs, wants and budgets.

Upgrade To The Thornton’s Glamping Site – 10kW Off-Grid Solar System

Solar powered shepherd huts

Honey pot: is an area of land on the Thornton’s farm with idilic views of lakes and forests, with wild game running around. Here the Thornton’s wanted two luxurious shepherd huts with en-suite showers and kitchen facilities.

Lake side: is an area on the Thornton’s farm with the most fabulous views of water, wildlife and scenery. Here the Thornton’s plan to make their camping and glamping site with basic shepherd huts. Also a large communal area and shower block facility will be here. Due to lack of mains water the Thornton’s got a local company in to drill bore hole for acquiring free natural water. The off grid power system here will power the shower block the ground source water pump and communal area with lights, fridges, freezers and microwaves.

The LG solar panel system

Each system utilises the very latest LG solar panels, which have one of the highest wattages for the surface area covered. LG solar panels have many advantages over competitors including giving extremely good power in low level light conditions. 16 LG 335 watt Neon 2 panels were utilised. Both sites honeypot and lakeside had a 5.36kw solar array which will produce 536 watts even when it’s raining. By installing a larger solar array this will reduce the batteries cycling down (being discharged) and increase the life span of the battery bank. 

The mounting systems for the solar panels utilises a very eco friendly way of ground mounting solar panels. Plastic buckets are used with a gravel ballast (about 50kg) and then the panels connect onto the buckets (please see photos). A flat level area was scrapped away with machinery then a hard wearing membrane was laid down. This stops weeds and grass growing up infront of the panels(stops any potential shading)  and reduces maintenance (strimming and cutting). Gravel is then laid over the membrane to make it look neat and tidy. By not using concrete and ground screws (other ways of ground mounting solar panels) this reduces the C02 emissions and uses recycled plastic for the buckets. 

The Leoch batteries

8 x 170ah LRCF batteries were used from Leoch (manufacturer that makes batteries for rolls Royce and Landrover/Jaguar). These batteries are the very latest lead carbon batteries, they are totally maintanance free and give a cycle life of 4800 cycles @ 40% dod (depth of discharge). This means the batteries will last ten years or more! 

The Iconica inverters

The latest inverters were used from Iconica, these inverters are highly efficient and are working in parallel operation (please see photos). Each inverter has a maximum output of 5kw, so when both are in parallel the maximum output is 10kw. This will power multiple appliances, lights and pumps all at once! If one inverter has an issue then their is redundancy and second inverter will take over by itself. 

Each site had a insulated shed for all the batteries and inverters and fuse boards to be installed upon. Trenches were dug between the solar arrays and the sheds and an armoured cable was used for the cabling of the Pv arrays. 10mm 4 core armoured cables were used as we had two string of solar panels ( 2 x 2.68kw strings of LG panels. 

Each site was designed so that the solar array and batteries could be extended in the future should the Thornton’s wish to enlarge there glamping and camping sites. 

View more here Wildwithnature.co.uk

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