Case Study:
Dawn Foods Ltd, Evesham

Dawn Foods Ltd

345 kWp (1,046 panel) installation

Dawn foods commits to solar for future sustainability

Dawn Foods is a leading bakery manufacturer specialising in bakery products and ingredients supplied to high street bakeries, supermarkets, food manufacturers and food service companies. First established in America more than 100 years ago, Dawn has grown into a global bakery company, for whom sustainability and reducing its carbon footprint is a key business objective. Based in Evesham, Dawn Food's production and cold storage facilities operate seven days a week, consuming in excess of two million units of electricity per annum. So, as part of the company's commitment to making its production site much more energy efficient, Dawn Foods was keen to switch to solar power.

Mypower prides itself on providing quality solutions that best meet its customers' needs. In this instance, and instead of proposing a system of the size put forward by a competitor who was already bidding for the business, we proposed a larger, more complex system.

Our plan for Dawn Foods included panels to their north facing roofs to utilise more roof space. We could clearly illustrate the additional long term cost reduction and significant fall in energy consumption that could be achieved if they opted for our recommendations.

Ingredients for success

Mypower designed and installed a 345kWp system, making maximum use of the available roof space. The installation of 1046 panels was straightforward, caused no disruptions to Dawn Foods and was completed within 3 weeks. The system would generate an estimated 305,000kWh of clean, low cost, electricity per annum, thus avoiding over 100 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Dawn Foods chose the highly regarded SolarEdge inverters with optimiser technology, so reducing potential shading impact and benefitting from enhanced reporting and safety features.

Grid constraints, no problem

Occasionally, and especially with larger solar PV systems, the local grid can be a limiting factor in the size of system that can be installed, unless costly grid upgrades are incurred. For Dawn Foods, a 200kW export limitation was in place. However, based on Mypower's analysis, this would not impact the commercial returns, primarily as over 90% of the solar generated electricity would be consumed onsite.

Key facts and predictions

345 kWp (1,046 panels) - installed by Mypower.
305,861 kWh - units of energy produced per annum.
4.81 p/kwh - equivalent forward purchase price of 7,043,856 units of electricity over 25 years including estimated Operating & Maintenance costs, and excluding potential Annual Investment Allowance tax benefit.
100 tonnes - CO2 emissions avoided per annum.
67% - saving from solar PV electricity compared to grid supplied electricity at 14.84 p/kWh.

Dawn Foods Mypower helps Dawn Foods to avoid significant CO2 emissions

A sustainable way to generate electricity

"Dawn takes social responsibility very seriously and as a global bakery business, sustainability is key going forward. We produce millions of cakes and mixes every year and keeping a site like ours operational uses a lot of electricity! Mypower was able to come up with a solution that ensures a more sustainable way to generate electricity and means we avoid significant CO2 emissions too."

Kevin Power, Plant Manager - Dawn Foods