Photovoltaic (PV) hardly needs an introduction these days as it is commonly seen on domestic roofs and large areas on agricultural land. Since the Government has introduced the incentive, which is part of the programme to have 15% electricity generated by renewal sources by 2020, it has had a big take up. Ofgem oversee the Feed in Tariff (FIT) scheme and over the past 5 years the tariff has been reduced along with the PV panels becoming less expensive. The return on capital can, however, still be better than many investments and is again indexed linked, guaranteed for 20 years.

Kernock Park Plants uses 600,000 units of electricity a year and has installed arrays totalling 120kWhr. This produces around 120,000 kWhr per year and most of this is used by the nursery. For KPP, taking into account the saving of electricity, the pay back is around 6.2 years. Large units must have a 3 phase supply and there are many regulations need to be met in order to connect to the main grid. More information can be found on the ofgem website.