One year later the system is up and running and generating clean sustainable energy to meet all the club’s energy needs and selling excess energy back to the grid. It has received hugely positive feedback from the community and is acting as a catalyst for people in the community to consider installing solar panels themselves.

Benefits:

• The clubhouse has 8KW of solar panels on the roof. These will produce, on average over 7,000kw of electricity each year.
• As the club operates mainly in the evening under lights, the solar power generated during the day is stored in two 3.5KW batteries. In the evening, after the sun has gone down, the batteries can supply their stored solar electricity to power the lighting.

• In the depths of winter, the batteries are useful as, if the weather is consistently bad, not giving a chance for the batteries to be charged via solar during the day, the battery can be charged from the grid at off-peak hours and discharged when you wish. This can still halve your electricity costs.

• The solar panels also act as a revenue stream; any excess electricity exported back to the grid will now be paid for by the electricity supply company.
• The joy of this system is that it is passive. There are no moving parts to go wrong or that need servicing. Once set up correctly this system self-regulates and each of the important actions spoken about above will occur automatically, without any input from an operator.

This is why solar is a perfect long-term solution as once set up properly, it will give you 25 – 35 years of electricity.

**Information provided by Bagenalstown AFC secretary Liam O’Brien**