St Georges PV Scheme

Bryson at St Georges is a Solar PV project set up in 2014 as a result of a partnership between Bryson Energy and the Committee of the Parish Church of St George, High Street, Belfast.  It was agreed to install 12 kW of solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of the Church Hall to assist the Church to control energy costs and to become more sustainable.  

It was agreed that Bryson Energy would pay for the installation of the panels and would recoup the cost of these through the payment of Northern Ireland Renewable Obligation Certificates.  The Church would benefit from income from the sale of electricity to the grid and in addition Bryson would contribute towards the costs of energy efficiency measures to be installed within the Parish Hall. 

Bryson Energy believes that the model used at St George’s is a good one for sustainable energy projects elsewhere in the community combining the knowledge and experience in renewables  of organisations such as Bryson Energy with the community expertise of the community partners to improve the sustainability of the community group while repaying the initial investment and so benefiting all.

We believe that the financial model utilized is a more social one in that the community group also benefits from the income – not just the free electricity as in some of the commercial PV schemes.  The Project also addressed the need to improve energy efficiency so as to reduce electricity demand through low energy lighting before installing the PV system to produce electricity.

A total of 12 kW of Renesola photovoltaic panels were installed in November 2014 and accredited by Ofgem in February 2015. By November 2015, they had produced a total of 8,094 units of electricity, just over half of which had been used internally by the Church committee and the remainder exported to the grid. This represented a saving in Carbon Dioxide of approximately 4 tonnes CO2 in the first year.