Kitty’s delivery van is now solar powered!

We are incredibly delighted that we have finally got our solar panels and EV charge point installed!

After some significant delays cause by things outside of our control we were delighted to work with local installers EGI Energy,who were incredibly helpful throughout to design a scheme which would maximise the available space and our budget.

First they did the Installation of a 7.4Kw single-phase EV charger for our new electric delivery van which our amazing community of supporters helped us to buy last year.

Followed by the installation of 19 Large Panels (10.07KW System) across the sunniest roofs of the laundry building. This will generate approximately 7336 Kwh per year, the equivalent saving 1519 Kg of CO2 annually. 

We want to say a special thanks to those who selected the name a solar panel reward in our Crowdfunder last year, we loved the creativity of the names. They are now up their catching rays on our roof and keeping our machines spinning for many years to come. 

(if you pledge to name a panel and haven’t yet us know what you want to name it, please get in touch!)

At current usage we estimate the electric van will take about 3482.44Kwh per year to charge, so the solar panels will completely cover the cost of running the van!! The rest will go towards electricity costs in the launderette.

As the launderette has a lot of powerful laundry equipment and uses lots of energy (we have no gas on premises) which means we currently use around 85,000Kwh per year. We already procure our energy from a 100% renewable provider, Ecotricity, as we are committed to sustainability principles in how run the business and putting the money we spend to best possible use. We didn’t mange to afford installation of a battery at this stage, but made the system battery enabled, so we can add this in the future for optimisation.

The solar installation has been possible thanks to The Energy Resilience Fund, administer by Key Fund. We received a blend of grant and repayable social finance to help us pay for the solar panels. 

We are celebrating the installation of our panels with a screening night in the launderette, showing Power Station, a film about community solar power and solidarity! We are hosting this night in collaboration with local organisations Anfield Peoples Cinema and Two Up Two Down to think with neighbours about how we might put the knowledge we have gained in this process to further use in our community!