Tudge Meats, Shropshire

For the Tudge family who rear free-range Berkshire pigs and then sell their succulent meat products across Shropshire and Herefordshire, keeping an eye on the bottom line is essential. In the 1990s they choose to cut out the middle man and sell their products direct via Farmers Markets and local shops. With rising energy costs, G&R Tudge decided in 2024 to install solar PV with the view to offsetting a sizeable proportion of their electricity bill.

“Solarkinetics was recommended to us and that’s how we like to work, through personal contacts,” said Guy Tudge, joint owner of the family-run business. “When Solarkinetics visited, Gordon Yule explained everything in easy to understand terms. We have a 3-phase electricity supply here at the farm so it was a bit more complicated than the usual electrical set-up.”

Solarkinetics took care of gaining the necessary pre installation approvals and post installation commissioning with the Distribution Network Operator (DNO).

On the roof of a building near to where the butchery, cool rooms and prep room/kitchen are located, 35 x 410Wp REC Twin Peak 5 solar panels (14.35kW) were installed, connected to a 12.5kW SolarEdge Home Wave three-phase inverter. This provides on-site power requirements with any excess exported to the grid.

The cool rooms require more electricity to run over the warmer summer months, fortunately this is when the solar panels are producing their maximum yields.

“When the guys came to do the install, they came when they said they would, they were obliging and left the site neat and tidy – they were a real pleasure,” continued Guy. Over the first 5 months the system has been running, starting May 2024, solar has met 40% of electricity usage.

“I’m happy with that. We’ll let this run for a year and ask Solarkinetics to analyse our consumption versus power output from the solar to see if installing batteries that can store excess power for use on cloudy days would make financial sense.”

The Tudge family decided to add solar PV to two of the farmhouses on the farm as well. Now everyone is benefiting from “free” electricity, even the pigs! When the weather is at its worst and the fields are like the Somme, the rare-bred pigs move into sheds where they live in family groups on thick beds of straw. Happy pigs, no wonder their meat tastes so good.