Nine years of solar energy at Howbery

As Howbery’s solar park turns nine, the amount of electricity that we are exporting back to the National Grid is extraordinarily high.

Since our solar park was set up on 24 June 2011, it has generated a total of 6,843,833kWh, of which 911,121kWh have been exported back to the National Grid. To put this in context, the average house uses around 4,500kWh year.

This year, our exports to the grid have been exceptional, already reaching 127,850kWh by 22 June, and outstripping our previous record for a whole year – 111,159kWh in 2019.

Paul Middleton, Technical Services Manager at Howbery, said: “It is quite incredible how much electricity we have sent back to the Grid this year compared to other years – and we’re only half way through the year. We have exported more electricity because of reduced business operations  and because of the sunny weather. Looking at our stats, there is little surprise that the UK has gone coal free for the last two months.”

May 2020 was a record month for our solar park, lapping up the sunshine in the UK’s sunniest calendar month on record. The park generated 135,344kWh of electricity. On 22 June the solar park was generating 1kWh every 5 seconds in the afternoon.