Case study: Solar Panels, Associated British Ports

Background:-
Associated British Ports has installed 20MW of solar arrays across 1.4 million sq m of covered storage space nationwide.

Electricity generated will power port operations for ABP and its customers, with excess power fed into the National Grid. The majority of energy generated on individual sites will be used to power port equipment such as cranes, conveyors, lock gates and offices.

One 30,000 sq m scheme involved covering multiple warehouse roofs at Immingham, Britain’s biggest port. HBPW was asked to advise ABP on the integrity of those buildings that had to support the additional weight of solar panels.

Challenge
Many structures are designed with bad weather in mind and snow is notorious for adding sudden and unexpected weight to rooftop structures. However, ABP needed to be 100% certain that their Immingham and Goole buildings were capable of taking the additional and more permanent weight of solar panels. Thanks to ‘snow thinking’ engineers were able to give them the answers they were looking for.

Solution
Bad weather engineering principles, similar to those used to calculate snow weight, were applied to make the necessary load calculations.

“We were able to prove that the steel frame structures were suited to ABP’s ambitions,” said HBPW’s project engineer, “helping pave the way for this hugely positive initiative by Associated British Ports.

Outcome
The UK-wide investment has seen ABP’s 21 ports introducing 100,000 solar panels generating up to 22,400,000kWh of clean electricity each year – enough to boil more than 1.12 billion kettles – making it one of Britain’s highest generating corporate solar power producers in the UK.

Immingham is one of two locations – the other being Goole – which together are now delivering 4.5MW capacity, enough to power almost 750 homes.