Amber Petroleum174 kWp over a live fuel forecourt

Amber Petroleum's forecourt operations carried very high energy consumption and significant carbon emissions. They wanted to cover as much of the rooftop as possible with solar PV, but the environment sits over flammable fuel storage, meaning any rooftop electrical system had to be engineered with fire-safety measures well beyond a standard commercial install.

MarVal Power designed a 174 kWp rooftop system using Tier 1 panels and inverters specified with Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI) protection, detecting and isolating any DC arcing fault before it can propagate. The whole scheme was installed from start to finish with zero interruptions to the day-to-day running of the forecourt, keeping fuel sales and site traffic moving throughout.

The system now produces 174,000 kWh of clean electricity per annum for Amber, reducing carbon emissions by 55 tonnes every year. Amber's levelised cost of solar electricity is fixed at €0.04 per kWh, the equivalent of €30,000 per annum straight off their energy bill, with budget certainty for the life of the asset. For one of Ireland's largest fuel suppliers, it's a working template for the rest of the estate.

What a fire-safety-engineered rooftop delivers, every year, for the life of the asset.

Photography from the Amber Petroleum install.