A solar PV system for BMW dealership

We’re delighted to partner with Inchcape, one of the UK’s leading franchised retailer groups, installing solar PV systems across their network of car showrooms and supporting their ambitious objective to reduce their CO2 emissions by 46% worldwide by 2030.

After an initial contract for three sites, we have signed a deal to complete a further 25, and Inchcape BMW in Norwich was one of the first installations that we completed. BMW Inchcape Norwich is a busy BMW and Mini car dealership selling new and used cars as well as offering servicing.

The dealership was already on a green electricity tariff, and it was chosen by Inchcape as one of the first sites for solar PV to increase their environmentally friendly efforts even further. The aim was to reduce their electricity usage from the grid by producing their own green energy, delivering an environmental and cost saving benefit for their daily operations.

Mark Ames, Head of Business; is thrilled with the solar PV installation, and very impressed with the professionalism of the Geo Green Power team. He said: “The installation process was absolutely spot on – from start to finish. Before the install a representative came over to our site and talked me through the process explaining all of the timescales in terms of when the install would take place and how long the team would be on site… from start to finish – it went very smoothly and there was no impact to us whatsoever.”

David Tyler, Director of Estates and Facilities: “Following the tender process we were delighted to award our initial contract to Geo Green Power for our trial sites. The process was incredibly smooth from start to finish and our first sites are now enjoying free, green electricity, protecting them against the huge increase in electricity costs that we are seeing. The obvious next step was to crack on and get the same solution installed at more sites.”

The installation took two weeks to complete and consisted of 526 panels, four inverters and all the associated cabling and mounting. The system will generate around 180,000kWh of electricity and save over 60 tonnes of CO2 every year.

If you’re looking to bring a renewable energy solution to your business, contact us today!

“Hello, my name is Mark Ames, I am the head of business here at InchcapeUK BMW and Mini in Norwich.

“Okay, Inchcape has an ambitious sustainable strategy, which is based on reducing our CO2 emissions by 46 worldwide before 2030 used in 2019 as a baseline. Although we are on a green tariff, we recognise that a solar solution would offer us a positive environmental and economical impact on our daily operations. Environmentally because we are taking less capacity from the national grid and economically because we produce our own power.

“Yeah the installation process was absolutely spot on from start to finish really, so James came over prior to installation he told me exactly what was going to happen, how long they were going to take, what area they needed to work in, so we could pencil off an area that they could work in safely, they went through all the health and safety and risk assessments with me and it was an absolute painless two-week assignment for the guys.

“They worked well with our business, so from a sales and after sales operation, it went very smoothly there was no impact to us whatsoever and in fact we didn’t even have to down the electric to commission the new solar panels. It was really really good and it was spot on to the two weeks that were quoted so thank you guys and thank you James.

“Since it’s been installed, the weather has been kind to us, so we’ve had some great bright sunny days and actually on those um sunny days, we are taking zero energy from the national grid, which is amazing to see. The system operates quietly in the background and gives us the ability to produce our own energy reducing our overheads and making the business more competitive for our customers.

“We’re a BMW and Mini main retailer, we sell both new and used cars for both BMW and Mini we service vehicles, we see between 80 and 100 throughout a day from our customer. We have an exciting future where the brands are actually at, especially with the electric product.

“We’ve got three fantastic models from BMW come on just in the last 12 months, with the IX the I the IX3 and the I4, they’re fantastic cars, they add to our future in the way the Inchcape came focusing on our green future and getting all our businesses up to the solar panel installation and what we’re giving back to back to the environment.”