Renewable energy has long been promoted by Gledhill, to maximise the energy efficiency of their extensive range of hot water cylinders.

Putting into action what we encourage homeowners to embrace, Gledhill have made significant investments in renewable energy at the main manufacturing plant in Blackpool.

The company looked at where not only energy and carbon reductions could be made, but also how their manufacturing costs could be reduced, thus helping to keep Gledhill at the forefront of competitive pricing.

Like many high energy users, Gledhill sought to reduce electricity expenditure as one of their main overheads, and the introduction of a Solar PV system provides the perfect solution. The roof of their main factory provided the perfect location for the Solar PV system, being sited on a large industrial area, and not being overlooked or seen by any residential properties.

A number of companies were invited to tender for the project, and finally the contract was awarded to EST Renewables in Preston, with Solfex also from Preston supplying the panels and inverters.

With the large energy requirements of the manufacturing equipment in the Blackpool production facility, a 250kWp system was selected to maximise the energy savings on site and gain the most from the Feed In Tariff Scheme that is available to both domestic and commercial solar installations.

A total of 1000 solar panels were fitted to the South West facing plane of the roof to the 80,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility, enabling Gledhill to reduce the electricity for the factory by 50%.

Tricia Holland, CEO of Gledhill said ‘Not only should we see significantly reduced energy bills thanks to the commercial solar installation, but we will also benefit from a regular payment for generation of green energy through the government’s Feed in Tariff. This will enable us to recoup the sizeable financial investment within the next 5 years’

‘In addition to the financial savings, the environmental impact is astounding. Our annual carbon savings will be in excess of 84 tonnes. This equates to off-setting the CO2 emissions from over 9 million Air-miles over the projected 20 year life of the system’

‘This latest measure to both reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint follows investment in September 2014, where we changed over 200 old style fluorescent light fittings to energy efficient LED’s in our large office building.’

Gledhill are committed to energy and carbon reduction targets, not only for ourselves, but also for our customers. We are constantly looking to develop our renewable range of cylinders, and there is no reason why we will not do the same when it comes to using other renewable energy in our production process.