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Solar panels for farms in Splott

A Splott farm buys electricity at the worst rate of the day in exactly the hours its roof could be generating. 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.

908 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 500 kWp array models at about 454,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

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96 m phase 1
Drawing Splott unit
Roof 96 x 62 m
Array 500 kWp
Yield 454,000 kWh/yr
Scale 1:500 / Rev A / Cardiff

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

Splott / 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 Splott generates

Modelled irradiation at this latitude is 1159 kWh per square metre a year in the plane of a shallow-pitched roof, which works out at 908 kWh for every kWp installed (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That sits within a few percent of the mean across the areas we cover, so what decides the scheme is your own demand pattern rather than the latitude.

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 Splott roof makes, month by month

What a Splott roof makes, month by month

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

050100Jan: 23 kWh per kWpJanFeb: 39 kWh per kWpFebMar: 73 kWh per kWpMarApr: 106 kWh per kWpAprMay: 127 kWh per kWpMayJun: 129 kWh per kWpJun129 kWh Jul: 127 kWh per kWpJulAug: 105 kWh per kWpAugSep: 82 kWh per kWpSepOct: 49 kWh per kWpOctNov: 28 kWh per kWpNovDec: 20 kWh per kWpDec

Jun produces 6.5 times what Dec does on the same roof. A 500 kWp array here models at about 454,000 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
Jan2311,500
Feb3919,500
Mar7336,500
Apr10653,000
May12763,500
Jun12964,500
Jul12763,500
Aug10552,500
Sep8241,000
Oct4924,500
Nov2814,000
Dec2010,000
Source: EU PVGIS v5.2
FIG. 2 Splott against the rest of Cardiff
  • Canton936
  • Pontcanna936
  • Cathays908
  • Splott908

Splott ranks 4 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 is the network operator here, and their answer on export capacity shapes the design. Any commercial array above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99 rather than G98, and the application fixes what you are allowed to push back onto the network. If the local network is tight, limiting export rarely breaks the case here: most of the generation is consumed on site while the building is working.

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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.

We pass your details to our MCS-certified installation partner so they can quote. Read the privacy notice.

Questions about solar in Splott

How much does a farm roof near Splott generate?
The model gives 908 kWh for every kWp installed here, so 500 kWp comes out at about 454,000 kWh a year before shading losses. A building of roughly 1,485 sqm of clear roof carries it. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Will the rural network around Splott take the export?
National Grid Electricity Distribution is the distribution network operator for Cardiff. Anything above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99, and the application sets the export limit. Rural supplies are often the binding constraint, so we ask the question before an array is sized.