Solar at my workplace

[dan_b]

So we now have 3x EVs in the work fleet so there's usually one of those on charge most days.
When we have a shoot in the green screen studio, the power draw with everything switched on gets us up to about 10kW. Probably on average the occupancy of the studio is 1 day a week once you take into account set-up, shooting and de-rig.
3D rendering draws maybe 2kW in computer power if we're doing it in house on our workstations rather than on a cloud renderer.

The cost analysis was always "back of a fag packet" but that was as much to try and back-up a decision we already wanted to make, but some man-maths made it easier! However, I would say the thing that made a big difference was the Superdeduction Tax Allowance - which was a tax incentive scheme post-COVID to get businesses to start capital investments again. Could claim back 125% of the value of the item as a write-off against Corporation tax. Which coupled with the VAT reclaim, the very high electricity prices and a company desire to "do the right thing" and some good cashflow meant it was worth spending the money before the Superdeduction scheme came to an end last month...

[Joeboy]

What is 3 EV's as a percentage of the work fleet? I'd bet you are rocking WAY beyond the average company ahem,... average.

[dan_b]

The 4th company vehicle is a Ford Transit Van - diesel…

Can’t see that being replaced with an EV for a little while yet alas.

[dan_b]

On that specific point - the type of Animation that they do at Aardman is extremely, incredibly skilled, and very, very time and labour intensive - takes them a day to shoot maybe 30 seconds of animation if that. As such, it's subject to huge pressure from wage costs - and is unlike computer-based forms of animation which is always basically getting faster and/or cheaper for the same output (due to better software and faster hardware, and AI). And it's also a pretty rare type of commercial animation as a result. So no it wouldn't surprise me if they ended up having to offshore some of their work.

However, there seems to be a pretty big influx of investment in filming and post production in the UK at the moment, led in particular from big cash splashes from the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Disney, and that does mean there's work out there being done on these shores. We're having a decent year at the moment anyway.

Might have asked this question before (apologies if so dan) ..in the news the likes of Aardman were made to look as if they were on the way out of their uk base for elsewhere, what's the real news there within the animation industry?

[Joeboy]

The 4th company vehicle is a Ford Transit Van - diesel…

Can’t see that being replaced with an EV for a little while yet alas.

75% EV work fleet? None too shabby!

[dan_b]

So we generated 1MWh of solar in April off the office solar array - wow!
We managed to self-consume 0.7MWh of that, so exported 300kWh, and still imported 2.24MWh of juice overall. But it's clearly making a decent dent in our electricity consumption.

Big numbers when compared to my experience with a 3kWp split array with shading issues at my old home.
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Edit - my calcs are a bit off - see below post.

[Krill]

Sorry, I just need to get my head around this: you used 2.94MWh in April, including the charging of the 3 EV?

It feels like rather than investing in batteries you need more panels.

[dan_b]

That's what the numbers are implying yes. An office building with 12 staff, plus a green screen film studio and 3x EVs uses quite a lot of energy it would seem.

The best aspect roof couldn't really fit any more panels on it, maybe a couple perhaps, but it is what it is now.

[dan_b]

No I've got the numbers wrong - hang on.

2.24MWh of electricity use in total, of which 700kWh was from the solar, so we imported 1.5MWh.

[dan_b]

That's a nice generation curve from yesterday 4th June - 73kWh generated!