Simpsons has invested over £100,000 to “take a big step forward in its sustainability journey”, reducing energy costs and increasing energy efficiency across the business.
The Inverness-based garden centre has had over 300 PV solar modules installed, generating up to 100KW per hour. It is hoped this energy will contribute significantly to the daily requirements of the garden centre, greatly reducing its carbon footprint.
According to Simpsons, the solar panel project will also save 24.63 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, the equivalent of planting 1,131 trees.
The move expands the garden’s centres move to a more sustainable model, having already cut its energy costs by 25% in the past six months by switching all bulbs to LED and becoming generally “more energy-aware”.
According to Simpsons, the new solar panels installed will provide an additional 20% of energy requirements to the business.
Managing director Andrew Simpson said, “Like many businesses, we have seen huge increases in energy costs. Our decision to move to green energy was made some time ago and the journey to becoming more sustainable and energy efficient started pre-covid. We considered a number of renewable energy options to enable us to reduce our energy costs and our carbon footprint.
“We have a significant roof space to work with and by maximising the number of solar panels on here ensures we maximise energy production for use across the business. We’d like to thank Resource Efficient Scotland for their help in auditing the energy efficiency across the garden centre as well as identifying and securing assistance with the implementation of these on-site measures.
“We hope to eventually run the garden centre wholly on renewable energy, implementing even more energy efficient changes, [such as] the future introduction of electric vehicles for our florist and local deliveries”.
