The leading UK insurer enlisted the services of renewable energy developer RenEnergy to install more than 3,000 Q CELLS solar modules for a 1 MW solar carport system at the site of the company’s iconic Plitheavis building in Perth, Scotland. The installation is one of the largest carports in the UK to combine solar and storage with EV charging.
[Berlin, Germany, 24 November, 2020] The renewable energy drive of one of the UK’s largest insurers – Aviva – has accelerated these past few weeks with the completion of one of the largest solar-powered carports in UK at the company’s Scottish headquarters in Perth. The 1.07 MW carport array has been built by renowned renewable energy developer RenEnergy using 3,283 Q.PEAK DUO-G5 solar modules from Q CELLS.
The solar carport was completed at the end of October, and will allow Aviva to reduce its onsite carbon emissions by around 400,000 kg per annum. Aviva will self-consume 77% of the generated energy onsite, thanks to the presence of a 1.8 MWh Tesla powerpack battery and 50 individual electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. The solar carport covers 342 parking spaces and was built without imposing any restrictions on car parking space for Aviva staff and visitors. Collectively, the annual output of the 1.07 MW installation will produced enough solar electricity to charge an EV for 90 trips around the world.
The site of the new carport is the Plitheavis building, which is a Grade A-listed modernist structure that has been widely labelled as ‘iconic’ within Scotland. Plans to develop a solar carport began 18 months ago when RenEnergy began discussing further collaboration with Aviva following the completion of an inaugural solar carport at the insurer’s Norwich site. This 600 kW solar carport was completed in March 2019, also using Q.PEAK DUO solar modules supplied by Q CELLS.
