Did you know that solar energy is now the cheapest source of electricity in history? Or that more than 1.4 million UK homes now have solar panels on their roof?
We’ve got a big shed, which also means we’ve got a big roof. So, the obvious next step on our continuous journey to improve sustainability was to install some solar panels.
And boy, have we gone to town on it. We're having 26 solar panels installed on the roof, which should generate 15kW of power. That’s enough to simultaneously power 500 laptops.
It’s been a real collaborative effort. Working with Cotswold District Council, we secured funding of £25,000 from the Rural England Prosperity Fund (which also helped fund our new canning machine). We had to match it – a big undertaking but one that’s fully in line with our sustainability values.
We’ve partnered with local renewables experts Raw Energy, who are based at the Royal Agricultural University Innovation Centre, furthering our collaboraton efforts.
We don’t have 500 laptops, but the installation should be enough to power the majority of our annual electricity requirements. Excess power will be utilised across other Field Farm businesses and to fire up the new electric hook-up pitches on the Cotswold Lakes Camping site – our sister business in the adjoining field.
It’s exciting stuff. Next on our ‘helping the planet’ list is to begin harvesting the rainwater from the big roof and using it to brew our main beers. We’ll let you know more about that soon, but it’s pretty cool to think that the brewery and taproom will soon operate from what lands on our roof.
