Sundog Energy pioneers innovative new solar PV mounting system in Cumbria, UK

Cumbria’s largest commercial solar PV system at Lakeland Livestock Mart, Cockermouth, first in Europe to benefit from new, cutting-edge ‘Trinamount’ technology

Cumbria-based Sundog Energy’s latest commercial installation at Mitchell’s Lakeland Livestock Mart, Cockermouth, is the first solar PV installation in Europe to benefit from an innovative new mounting system called Trinamount, it was announced today. The new system, from leading global solar panel manufacturer Trina Solar, has been designed to significantly speed up the installation time of Trina’s solar PV panels by reducing the number of parts and eliminating the need for traditional mounting rails.  See more on You Tube.

The impressive state-of-the-art 50kWp retro-fit installation, currently Cumbria’s largest commercial solar PV system to date, comprises 212 Trina Solar high efficiency PV modules mounted on a pitched steel roof.  The system will provide enough renewable energy to light and power Mitchell’s business during the day with surplus power being exported and sold to the national grid.

According to Martin Cotterell, Founder and Technical Director of Sundog, and who personally led the installation team on site from start to finish,, “We had a race against time in very testing weather conditions to complete this landmark installation before the December 12, deadline for the Feed-in Tariff, so we were really able to put the new mounting system through its paces and appreciate the very significant benefits it brings.”

Bill Roberts, Managing Director of Sundog commented “The recently announced reduction in solar subsidies means that we are adopting innovative ways to reduce installation times and therefore costs for our customers and the installers we supply.   We believe that this new system will be quickly taken up by installers around the UK.”

About the system

• By utilising a specialized frame that accepts a series of drop-in and quarter-turn connections that connect directly to the module frame, Trinamount drastically reduces the number of parts and eliminates the need for traditional mounting rails.  According to manufacturer Trina Solar, “Trinamount offers a really fast solution for commercial installations such as this”.
• Trina Solar is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of solar PV modules and has a reputation for providing high quality products.  Trina Solar is one of the few PV manufacturers that have developed a vertically integrated business model from the production of silicon ingots, wafers and cells to the assembly of high quality modules

• To facilitate the connection to the grid, the system uses three 15MT Solarmax inverters from the Swiss manufacturer Sputnik Engineering.  Like Trina Solar, Sputnik is one of the world leaders in its field and recently celebrated its 20 year anniversary.

About Sundog Energy

• Sundog Energy designs and installs solar PV systems for UK households as well as commercial and public sector bodies.  Sundog Energy installs to the highest technical standards, as recognised in the company’s successful bid to design and install the ground-breaking solar PV system on the glazed roof of Kings Cross Station.   Sundog recently installed the PV system on Bradford Cathedral, the world‘s first solar powered cathedral. Sundog is also a distributor, supplying high quality solar PV panels, inverters, components and installation kits to independent solar installers throughout the UK.

• Sundog is Trina Solar’s main UK distributor.

• Martin Cotterell, a pioneer of solar power and founder of Sundog Energy in 1995, is one of the UK’s most respected solar energy experts and has been instrumental in establishing and improving industry standards for PV installations in the UK and internationally.  Martin is the major author of the UK Guide to the installation of PV systems and he worked on the development of engineering recommendations that govern grid-connection of PV in the UK.  Martin sits on the MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme) PV and roofing technical working groups.  He also represents the UK on the IEC (International Electrotechnical Committee) working group on PV installations standards, which he also convenes.

• Sundog is the first solar PV company to be awarded the highly-coveted Investors in People Silver award