The University and Professional Development Centre (UPDC) in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, offers degree courses and adult education services. It recently installed 500 kilowatts (kW) of rooftop solar, with support from West Suffolk Council. The estates team at UPDC, part of the Eastern Education Group, sought to ensure that it could maximise use of the renewable energy generated by the rooftop array, with an energy storage system to capture the surplus solar.
Andrew Swift, Group Director of Estates for Eastern Education Group, said: “This is a large building, which was a former warehouse and engineering facility, so it takes a great deal of energy to run. – The campus is functional all year round and generally for long hours on most days.
“When energy prices escalated our bills increased threefold, so it became a priority to reduce them. West Suffolk Council supported us with the solar installation, as we wanted to optimise our use of renewable energy and the sustainability it would generate for the college. We were already informed of battery energy storage systems and approached Connected Energy to find the right solution for us.”
Energy storage specialists Connected Energy carried out a feasibility study to demonstrate the savings that the Group could make by adding an energy storage system to support the solar array. Connected Energy recommended and installed one of its 300kW E-STOR units.
