That’s right! – we’re incredibly excited to announce our brand new installation of solar infrastructure at Jack’s Alt-Stays.
Thanks to the Ayrshire Rural and Islands Ambition (ARIA) fund and the Scottish Government, we’ve been able to achieve a goal we’ve had since Day 1 of our start-up business.
We’ve always strived to be a genuinely environmentally sustainable business, through efforts such as tree planting initiatives in partnership with Ecologi, and our local and sustainable build processes, however a lack of funds during the early stages of our start-up meant we were unable to install our own green energy infrastructure from the outset.
Up until January 2023, we’ve been powering our cabins through the national grid, supplied by the 100% green energy supplier – Octopus Energy.
Despite amazing efforts of Octopus to make green energy accessible to all, we always wanted to have something tangible which would allow us to generate our own on-site renewable energy.
After applying to the ARIA fund near the end of 2022, we managed to secure some vital Scottish Government grant funding which has allowed us to install 8 x solar panels on the roofs of each of our 5 cabins in Millport.
The installation took place during early January, and we’re delighted with the final product. Check them out:
The funding has also allowed us to install 2 x premium Tesla Powerwall batteries, enabling us to store generated energy in high-generation, low-usage periods, for use in low-generation, high-usage periods.
Based on the infrastructure as a whole, we are hoping to achieve annual carbon savings of 2681.11kg CO2e.
2024 Update: We now generate 12 Megawatt Hours of electricity each year, and are 95% self-sufficient for electricity during the summer months and 55% self-sufficient year-round. When the Tesla Powerwall Battery is full, and we’re generating more than we use, the excess green energy is exported back into the grid for use elsewhere.
When compared to our predicted energy consumption data, we believe this infrastructure will allow us to power our business through renewable energy for the vast majority of the year – what a result!
We will now only have to rely on the mains connection as a back-up for short periods of high consumption or the winter where solar energy generation potential is limited.
This is a huge milestone for our business, and we’d like to thank the Ayrshire Rural and Islands Ambition (ARIA) fund for helping us achieve this huge ambition of ours!
