Retail · Utrecht province, Netherlands · 2023
Six garden centres, one solar programme and charging for every visitor
1.38 MWp across six sites and 36 visitor chargers, rolled out in one season.
Site plan
Groenhof Garden Centres
Utrecht province, Netherlands
- Solar array, 1,380 kWp
- 36 charge points
- Trees and planting kept
- Completed
- 2023
- Drawn by
- Lumora engineering
- System size
- 1,380 kWp
- Yearly generation
- 1,283 MWh
- Saved a year
- €225,000
- Payback
- 5.3 years
- CO₂ avoided a year
- 500 t
01The challenge
Groenhof runs six garden centres around Utrecht, each with heated glasshouses, cold rooms for plants and long summer opening hours. Visitors kept asking for chargers, and the board wanted one programme rather than six separate projects.
02What we built
We wrote one design standard for all six sites: panels on the solid shop and warehouse roofs, the glasshouses left clear, and six visitor chargers per car park with card payment. One contract, one schedule, one monitoring view for the group.
03The result
All six sites were finished between March and July 2023. Together they make 1,283 MWh a year, and the chargers run on the same roofs on summer weekends.
How the project ran
Survey
October 2022
Six sites surveyed in two weeks with one checklist.
Standard design
November 2022 to January 2023
One layout rule, one charger standard and one permit approach for all sites.
Roll-out
March to July 2023
Two crews moving site to site, working before opening hours.
Monitoring
From August 2023
A group dashboard that compares the six sites week by week.
One contract, six sites and one person to call. That is what made it possible for a business our size.
Site assessment
A site like Groenhof Garden Centres's? Let us look at yours.
An engineer reviews your meter data and roof, visits the site and sends a written proposal with a design, a yield model and the financing options that fit. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.