For Business – TAD Electrical Industries

Project summary

TAD Electrical industries is a family-owned and operated electrical manufacturing business in Adelaide, South Australia.  Over the years, TAD has earned a reputation for designing and manufacturing high-end, quality transformers for some of Australia’s largest corporations.

Manufacturing large electrical equipment requires heavy machinery, which at times can consume large amounts of energy.  TAD operates on a traditional 7 am to 5 pm workday cycle, meaning most of the energy consumption is during sunlight hours.

This combination of high energy consumption and daytime usage aligns perfectly with a commercial solar system that offsets grid power consumption and reduces TAD’s ongoing electricity cost.

Apex solution

The roof space on the manufacturing building was suitable for flat mounted solar modules and was of a North-West orientation.  The main challenge was to work around obstacles and shading objects on the roof.

A roof inspection was completed to understand the potential impact of shading on the modules from these obstacles and recognise the optimal panel positioning and generate a solar layout plan.  This process identified that not all panel shading could be eliminated, and method would need to be implemented that reduced these effects.

The result of this site evaluation was that the solar control equipment selected is optimised for partially shaded solar arrays.  This equipment included the Jinko half-cell modules. These modules are essentially two solar panels in one, meaning if one half of the module is shaded, the other half isn’t impacted.

Secondly and more importantly, SolarEdge was selected as the inverter technology for the system.  The SolarEdge inverter and accompanying solar module optimisers ensure each module is functioning at its peak performance and is not adversely affected by other shaded panels in the same wiring string.  This technology is perfect when only some solar array panels may be shaded, and others are not, maximising solar generation.

The client also requested that a non-penetrative fixing method be used on the roof, eliminating any permanent roof fixing holes and locations for leaks to develop in the future.

Apex benefits