Long-Term Investments Deserve High Quality Systems
24/7 electricity usage and large air conditioning loads had Heritage Brady Funeral Directors searching for financial relief. Enphase technology promised a safe, high performing, and out-of-sight solution suited for the funeral home’s ongoing needs.
Laying Costly Electricity Prices to Rest
Heritage Brady Funeral Directors in Gordonvale, Queensland, consists of a large chapel that seats 300 people, crematorium, and catering facilities. Heritage Brady Funeral Directors is committed to meaningful, affordable funeral care and supporting families with personal, dignified service and understanding. Recently, it’s made a new commitment—one to affordable clean energy that’s good for its business and good for the environment.
Adding 20kW of solar meant lower electricity bills and an environmentally friendly way to offset the site’s multiple facilities and constant consumption loads.
Delivering on Quality Expectations
The project was first quoted for a full DC, three-phase system, carrying voltages of 800V in a single inverter. But this proposed design quickly revealed flaws when the owner requested that the rooftop system on one building also power a separate building 50 meters away. With string inverters, installer Hush Energy would need to run the system’s cabling through multiple brick walls and feed it underground to cover the 50-meter length.
In addition to avoiding all of the work that would be required, the owner wanted to preserve the appearance of the site’s new building by avoiding outside cabling and visible, large inverters. It was then that Hush Energy introduced Heritage Brady Funeral to Enphase Microinverters.
Enphase Microinverters remain completely hidden beneath each panel, eliminating the need for external wiring or conduits. The Enphase System also uses existing cabling for communications to further simplify the installation.
“Our customer insisted on the highest quality system, one commensurate with his recent investment in the new building,” said Tom McClelland, owner and manager of Hush Energy. “Enphase enabled us to deliver on all of his quality expectations, while still saving on material and labour costs.”
Gordonvale, located just 30km outside of Australia’s second most rainy city—Tully—sees enough rainfall each year to really put a damper on a PV system’s performance. Hush Energy, which has been installing solar since 2009, knew that microinverters can maximise production even in cloudy weather, and that they would be perfect for Brady Heritage Funeral Directors.
The system owner also wanted a solar solution that he could easily monitor. Enlighten, Enphase’s monitoring platform, can be readily accessed from a PC, tablet, or smartphone, and displays comprehensive, up-to-the-minute production data—perfect for an energy-conscious user.
Win-Win for Commercial Customers
Together, Hush Energy and Enphase provided Heritage Brady Funeral Directors a solar system with high production performance year round.
“We know some commercial customers are hesitant to use microinverter technology, but this project proves that microinverter installations can be completed without disrupting business and come with a high-quality communications system,” said McClelland.