Westflight were engaged to design, construct and manage the project from start to finish including the Connection agreement with WPD and the Local Authority Planning Application. Providing a positive message and accurate information to the local community ensured that there were almost no objections and the Planning Consent was achieved without difficulty.
The South facing sloping field is divided by both an overhead 11kV electricity line and a public footpath which meant that the solar PV installation would be in the West half of the field and remaining well clear of the line and footpath.
The bases for the WPD transformer cabin and the "EHouse” were constructed first, followed by a "spine” trench straight down the middle of the site into which all of the cabling was laid in sand for protection.
A total of 3,984 Amerisolar 250Wp solar modules are carried on a galvanised steel framework which is supported on galvanised steel piles inserted 1.6m in to the ground. The modules are arranged in a "5 in landscape” configuration facing due South and at an angle of 22° from horizontal. The output from the modules is arranged into 166 individual "strings” .
A total of 28 ABB PRO33 string inverters are used and these are mounted in four groups on the backs of the rows. A combiner box takes the individual output from each of the inverters onto 240mm² paired aluminium cables running in the spine trench back to the Ehouse.
The G59/3 protection relay together with surge and earth fault protection is located in the GRP double insulated Ehouse which additionally houses the WPD 1600A MCCB and CT metering.
The project was built in 8 weeks and was successfully commissioned on 19/03/2015.
