We started working with Ludlow Brewing Company in 2021, when founder and MD Gary Walters commissioned a 36 kW system for the roof of their 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 they generated was costing just 3.6p per kWh.
A year later Gary asked us to extend the panels across the remaining roof-space, bringing it up to 62 kW. Despite the grant funding no longer being available, the financial and environmental benefits still stacked up in favour of more solar.
The larger system was now generating upwards of a third of the brewery’s power demands. But their end goal is to brew their beer from 100% renewable energy.
So attention turned to the adjacent building whose roof, though smaller than the cold storage unit, could accommodate another 60 kW. We installed and connected it in the autumn of 2023, bringing the total generating capacity on the site up to 120 kW.
This incremental approach has worked well for Ludlow Brewing Company. 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.
Either way, the end result is that more clean energy gets generated at affordable prices, which is good for business and good for the environment. We can all drink to that!
