Garador Begins Producing Garage Doors With Renewable Energy

Garador is reinforcing its leadership in British manufacturing with a major investment in solar energy.

Britain’s foremost garage door manufacturer is celebrating the completion of the installation of over 1,500 solar panels across its main factory roof. These will help power the company’s machinery.

The major installation should provide well over half of the power requirements at Garador in the summer months and will still make a major contribution to overall power supply during colder winter months as well.

Garador’s main factory and head office are on the outskirts of Yeovil, in Somerset and, along with its established leadership in garage door manufacturing, the company has already been recognised for its environmental policies. These include reducing plastic protective wrapping from all its products.

With strong sales of its latest designs in roller and sectional garage doors as well as in its top selling traditional up and over doors, turning to solar energy is just one of a number of recent investments made by the company for the future.

Extensive preparation

The amount of preparation needed for the installation was extensive, according to Garador’s Managing Director, Jon Watson.

“We had to repair, refurbish and paint the roof before we could begin fitting any solar panels. Then we needed an inverter, to transform the DC power from the panels into AC power to run the production machinery, along with energy monitoring equipment,” he comments.

“It has been a complex process but we are confident the panels will not only help to reduce our carbon footprint but also reduce our overall electricity costs over the long-term.”

Carrying out the installation was Perfect Sense Energy.

Ian Marr, head of sales at Perfect Sense Energy, says: “Garador were an excellent client to work with. The project was supported from day one by the board and senior management.

“The system is expected to generate over 700,000 kWh of clean electricity, with return on investment in just a few years and significant reductions in CO2.”

Garador say they’re now putting the finishing touches to the installation and it should be fully up and running soon.

Find out more about Garador and its full line of products by visiting www.garador.co.uk.