Ludlow Brewing Company, in Shropshire, has extended its solar panel coverage with a new installation from specialist CleanEarth Energy.
The two companies started working together in 2021 when brewery managing director, Gary Walters, commissioned a 36 kilowatts peak (kWp) system for the roof of a recently-built cold storage unit.
The initial project was eligible for a grant from the Marches Renewable Energy project, which funded 50% of the capital investment. This brought the payback period down below three years and meant the electricity generated was costing just 3.6p per kilowatt hour (kWh).
A year later, Gary asked CleanEarth Energy to extend the panels across the remaining roof space, bringing it up to 62kW. Despite the grant funding no longer being available, the financial and environmental benefits stacked up in favour of more solar.
The larger system was now generating upwards of a third of the brewery’s power demands. But the end goal is to brew beer from 100% renewable energy.
So attention turned to an adjacent building, the roof of which, although smaller than the cold store, could accommodate another 60kWp. CleanEarth Energy installed and connected it in the autumn of 2023, bringing the
total generating capacity on the site up to 120kWp.
This incremental approach has worked well for Ludlow Brewing Co. While some businesses are able to max out their installation in one go, for others it makes more sense to spread the investment over two or three stages, adapting plans to match the capital available.
“Solar power is the cornerstone of our sustainability strategy,” said Gary. “CleanEarth have been instrumental in
future-proofing the brewery’s energy infrastructure, to help us create long-term operational efficiency and reduce emissions and costs.”
