Changing the energy outlook for Care Homes
Solar And Charge are specialists in providing solar related energy solutions for care homes. We understand that system install and operation needs to be hassle free. We have lots of experience of dealing with different care home situations, managing consents from relevant authorities including planning and inherited electrical set up. All in a promt and timely manner so your system is able to change your energy equation soonest. Foremost, we will look to give you exceptional value that yields an early payback on your money input.
Take action today to reduce your energy costs for the long term.
Take control
Care homes focus on meeting regulatory requirements to to keep residents warm and comfortable, usually translates into high energy usage. While insulation and other energy efficiency measures can help, it’s time to embrace technology and generate your own power. By harnessing the potential of solar energy and taking advantage of special night rates, you can save significant amounts in energy costs. These are long lasting savings that generate cash that could be put to improvements in other parts of your care home.
Cups of tea served every day in care homes in UK
Spent on electricity per typical care home bed per year
Average saving per bed made by care home we fitted solar
“for me the biggest benefit was we were able to use the money saved on energy on things that mattered to residents“
Care Home Manager
Our Mission
To give businesses like care homes access to technology and methods that save on energy costs. We will do this excelling at the value provided and earliest payback on investment possible. In turn this will improve their CO2 profile and opportunity to improve on resident care.
How did we get here?
‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ … so the saying goes. When we faced tripling energy costs ourselves, we looked for help and went to market for solar and similar things. Annoyingly, all we found was semi-helpful ‘hardware’ installation proposals and nothing like the coherent energy strategy that we needed to combat the ‘cost of energy’ crisis we were experiencing.
At Solar and Charge, we had the chance to re-engineer everything that the industry was offering to meet these latest demands. So we did.
A fresh approach
We took the best of what was on offer in the market, added solutions as opposed to hardware, added innovation and sensible cost-effective fitting methods. Moreover, our low low overhead structure and our meticulous design approach, means we can offer unbeatable service, great value and the best returns for our customers.
We start by understanding what you need and are looking to achieve and overaly on it our promise of early payback. The investment has to make sense all round!
How we can help You
Assess & quote
We will take into account what is it you are trying to achieve and by when. Without obligation, we will do a comprehensive, no cost assessment of where your care home is at in terms its energy use and cost savings potential.
Solutions for you
Passion, care and innovation go into offering your business the best options. We will only offer what you need and what is cost effective and none of what you don’t need.
Buying options
Choose from our flexible buying options: purchase the equipment and installation from us for an excellent return on your investment. Or, opt for our power purchase agreement (PPA) where we pay for equipment and installation and offer low-cost electricity in an ongoing and long term fair deal, with the risk to you considerably minimised.
Install and After
Our team prioritises efficiency and minimal disruption throughout: from securing authorities’ consents to commissioning, we take care of all the necessary steps. Post-handover, our support continues, so you can maximise the benefits of your system.
Case Study 1
Dynamic owner, Ms RS, had had to man every function in practice when the covid had hit staff and even some suppliers. Post-covid, committed to expanding the group, she had just acquired this care home in Runcorn, but unfortunately it came with a huge energy bill and an inflated per kWH electricity tarriff.
Not only did we have find an appropriate long term solution, we also had to implement it in double quick time.
This we did. Following up, at our half year assessment, we had great satisfaction in reporting a total saving of £14,300 – recouping more than a third of the initial outlay in only a tenth of of the payback period we targeted. After that, of course, the saving continued, but thankfully, the renewal tarrif was better too.
Case Study 2
At this site the network operator had severe limits on what would be allowed in terms of solar installation due to the age of the cabling in the area.
We had to come up with a credible proposal and negotiate a higher export limit that allowed us to reconfigure their existing solar installation, add additional panels and install over 150 Kwhr of battery storage.
Once approved, installed and licensed, the site generated almost 8 Mwhr of electricity over the winter equivalent of a saving of £2322 which was significant proportion the electricity costs.
Case Study 3
This large care home was set in some in lovely woods. That was nice, but the woods were not owned by the care home and only sporadically maintained. This threw a complication in that in some of the year, we estimated the leafy trees may well shade some of the panels. This would prove a problem for electricity production unless our design compensated for this effect.
The site was also spread out so the electrical works had in temselves to be innovatively conceived and follow the rule least disruption and cost minimisation. This is an oft overlooked factor with many installations, the consequence of which is an unneccessarily higher cost to the buyer.
This was a particularly satisfying install for us for the problems we overcame and the value we delivered. At the six month mark review, we we were well ahead of the curve in terms of returns received!
The Accountants view
So what would your accountant say? Or how would it impact the business financial standing? Also, what if the appeals but we don’t have the cash flow?
Does it make financial sense?
The good thing about finances is that numbers can bring clarity. You and your accountant will want to know what is going to change with your ongoing costs for energy after you install solar. This allows an estimate of how long it will take to get your money you put in back. We target that ‘payback’ is around five years.
Then you want to estimate how much profit over and above what you put in. This takes into a longer time span, cost of money and other things. This, internal rate of return calculation (IRR) is a more comprehensive indicator. We target 15-25% and that is exceptional!
Are there tax breaks
Yes, certainly. The current tax regime encourages investment. All your spend on the solar system should qualify for “capital allowances” and with the UK tax regime that means you are able to offset that spend against profits. For care homes, there is currently a dispensation that allows the cost to be VAT free.
More than that, the current regs (notwithstanding your accountant’s advice) allows that you are able to write the whole amount off in the first year of spend! So if your taxation rate on profit was 20% and you invested say, £50,000 on a comprehensive solar system, the tax break means, it would actually cost you only £40,000 in net terms. Sound!
What is the green angle?
Not to be controvercial but CO2 is very much a by-product of the majority of activity around the day-to-day operation of a care home. As is the case for many business types, be it healthcare or manufacturing or corporate offices.
Piecemeal all this adds up to a global CO2 problem. More and more, individuals, corporates, and local government departments are looking into the opposite effect – how piecemeal we can all reduce CO2 footprint, or improve our ‘green’ credentials? Changing our energy use profile by generating CO2 free energy via solar is a huge shift in the right direction!
For an example of how made one hospitality business achive the almost unheard of status of net zero CO2 see here.
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Your first step to saving £’s on your energy costs
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