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Solar panels for farms in Pontcanna

Farm buildings around Pontcanna carry broad, shallow roofs that were put up for storage and stock, not for generation. What decides a farm scheme here is the state of the roof sheets and the incoming supply, which is why the survey looks at both before anyone sizes an array.

936 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 500 kWp array models at about 468,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

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96 m phase 1
Drawing Pontcanna unit
Roof 96 x 62 m
Array 500 kWp
Yield 468,000 kWh/yr
Scale 1:500 / Rev A / Cardiff

Illustrative layout for a unit of this size. Your own figures come from the roof survey.

Pontcanna / Cardiff
A modern steel framed agricultural building with its roof covered in solar panels, tractor and trailer in the yard, fields beyond
Industrial stock of the kind we survey across Cardiff.

Agricultural rooftop solar across Cardiff

What a farm roof near Pontcanna generates

Modelled irradiation at this latitude is 1193 kWh per square metre a year in the plane of a shallow-pitched roof, which works out at 936 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is around 6 percent above the mean across the areas we cover, which is as strong as UK farm rooftop gets outside the south coast.

No solar scheme is recorded in this postcode district in the planning database. On a farm that usually means nothing has been built above the reporting threshold rather than that nothing has been built, because a roof array on a shed rarely appears in it.

FIG. 1 What a Pontcanna roof makes, month by month

What a Pontcanna roof makes, month by month

Modelled output per kWp installed, for a shallow-pitched south-facing array. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2.

050100Jan: 24 kWh per kWpJanFeb: 41 kWh per kWpFebMar: 76 kWh per kWpMarApr: 110 kWh per kWpAprMay: 130 kWh per kWpMayJun: 132 kWh per kWpJun132 kWh Jul: 130 kWh per kWpJulAug: 108 kWh per kWpAugSep: 85 kWh per kWpSepOct: 50 kWh per kWpOctNov: 30 kWh per kWpNovDec: 21 kWh per kWpDec

Jun produces 6.3 times what Dec does on the same roof. A 500 kWp array here models at about 468,000 kWh across the year, but it arrives unevenly, which is why we size against your summer daytime load and then look at whether storage is worth adding for the shoulder months.

Monthly figures as a table
MonthkWh per kWp500 kWp array
Jan2412,000
Feb4120,500
Mar7638,000
Apr11055,000
May13065,000
Jun13266,000
Jul13065,000
Aug10854,000
Sep8542,500
Oct5025,000
Nov3015,000
Dec2110,500
Source: EU PVGIS v5.2
FIG. 2 Pontcanna against the rest of Cardiff
  • Canton936
  • Pontcanna936
  • Cathays908
  • Splott908

Pontcanna ranks 2 of 4 towns we cover in Cardiff on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 908 to 936, a spread of 28 kWh per kWp. Within Cardiff that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.

Bars are zero based, so length is proportional to the figure. Where a county is flat, that is the finding: location is not the lever, consumption is. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, modelled per town

Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution

National Grid Electricity Distribution operates the distribution network across Cardiff, so the export application goes to them. Anything larger than 3.68 kW per phase falls under G99, which means an application before commissioning rather than a notification afterwards. A constrained network is not the end of a scheme. Capping export costs little when the building already absorbs most of what the roof produces.

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Send us the postcode

Tell us where the unit is and roughly how big the roof is. We come back with what it can carry, what it would generate against your consumption, and the three ways to pay for it.

Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges the survey and passes your details to our MCS-certified installation partner so they can quote.

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Questions about solar in Pontcanna

What would a 500 kWp array produce on a farm near Pontcanna?
Yes, and the figure matters more than the sunshine. At 936 kWh per kWp a year, a 500 kWp array on a Pontcanna holding models at around 468,000 kWh. What changes the answer is how much of that the farm uses itself. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Which network operator handles the connection around Pontcanna?
Applications go to National Grid Electricity Distribution, who run the network across Cardiff. On a farm the incoming supply matters as much as their answer: a single phase supply caps what can be installed whatever the roof would take.