£24,500
Saved per year
21
CO2 saved per year
Tonnes
117 kWp
System capacity
The Challenge
Glasgow Angling Centre trades from a large retail unit at The Point Retail Park on Saracen Street, in the north of Glasgow, and anglers travel from all over Scotland to shop there. Its range is often described as the largest retail selection of fishing tackle and clothing in Europe. A shop floor big enough to hold that range uses a lot of electricity for lighting, heating and retail systems through long trading days, and most of that demand falls in daylight hours.
Every one of those units came from the grid at full commercial rates. For a business in Glasgow, the obvious question was whether rooftop solar would earn its keep this far north. Annual solar yield is lower here than in the south of England, so a forecast borrowed from a project in Cornwall would have been misleading.
The Solution
Eden Sustainable designed a 117 kilowatt peak (kWp) rooftop solar PV system for the Saracen Street store: 258 JA Solar 455W panels on the building’s pitched trapezoidal metal roof, feeding three Solis inverters. Glasgow Angling Centre paid for the system itself as a capital expenditure (CAPEX) project, so it owns the asset outright and keeps every pound of saving it produces.
The generation forecast was built for Glasgow’s latitude rather than a national average, because the economics of solar in Scotland depend on getting that number right. Eden supplied the panels, inverters and mounting kit and managed an installation programmed for under two weeks on the roof in June 2023, with the system tested and commissioned that July. The electrical connection was made at a sub-main board in the warehouse, well away from customers on the shop floor. Eden also handled the grid connection application with SP Energy Networks and all compliance sign-off.
The Outcome
The system now saves Glasgow Angling Centre £24,500 a year on electricity and avoids 21 tonnes of CO₂ every year. For a 117 kWp array in the west of Scotland, that is a clear answer to anyone who still thinks commercial solar only pays in the south.
The saving comes off the store’s bill every year the panels generate, and every unit made on the roof is a unit that can’t be hit by the next rise in grid prices.