The Old Railway Line Garden Centre in Powys, Wales, has recently installed a set of photovoltaic (PV) panels as part of its mass-redevelopment plan.
There are now 210 of these panels adorning three roofs of the garden centre with the aim of reducing its carbon footprint and energy bills.

General manager of the family-run garden centre Huw Lewis said: "The solar PV panels ... will provide nearly 40,000kWh of electricity each year, saving us more than 20 tonnes of CO2 annually. The redevelopment of the garden centre has been designed with sustainability in mind, so it makes perfect sense for us to incorporate renewable energy. We hope that the solar panels will provide the majority of our electricity needs."

The garden centre has predicted it will pay back the installation costs for the solar PV array within the next seven years, and as it will receive regular payments over the next 25 years based on the electricity generated from the system, the project will become an income to the business from 2019.

The panels were installed by Caplor Energy. Business development manager Jamie Baldwin spoke of the benefits of similar horticultural businesses using the energy source, "Using solar PV generated electricity at garden centres can be really effective as many have large roof spaces ideal for solar energy technology.

"They will also almost always use all the electricity generated on-site thus maximising the energy and carbon savings."