Case Study // Project Overview
The Real Yorkshire Pudding Company
The Real Yorkshire Pudding Company was founded by a father and son in Sheffield in 1992 cooking Yorkshire puddings at home. Since then, they have massively scaled their business to a state-of-the-art factory in Thorne and are now cooking 120 million Yorkshires a year. Since 2010 YPC have opened 24 hour production facilities within their factories which operate 5 days a week and require a substantial amount of power to keep running around the clock.
They have multiple east and west facing trapezoidal steel-roofed buildings, which offered an ideal platform for a Solar PV installation. The steel roofs not only provide a durable, long-lasting foundation but also allow for easy panel mounting, ensuring a secure fit and suitable angle for near maximum energy production throughout the day. This combination of roof orientation and material creates a fantastic environment for efficient Solar production.
Challenges
When working on a Solar installation at a busy food production facility like YPC, our team prioritized not only precision and efficiency but also the highest standards of health and safety. Given the nature of the environment, we implemented comprehensive safety measures to ensure that both our team and the factory staff were protected at all times.
When working around skylights all the team would wear full safety harnesses bolted to the roof as well as taking extra precautions and following our set guidelines when working in these situations. Our team’s attention to detail in health and safety, combined with our methodical approach to the installation, ensured that the project was completed efficiently, with zero safety incidents, and with minimal disruption to the factory’s daily operations.
We conducted thorough risk assessments to identify any areas where combustible dust may accumulate. Working in a factory that stores and uses large amounts of flour can be surprisingly dangerous due to the risk of dust explosions. Flour is highly combustible because it consists of tiny particles that, when dispersed in the air, can ignite if they come into contact with a flame or a spark. The flour has a large surface area relative to its volume, allowing it to catch fire quickly.
KEY STATS
PV system size: 410 kWp
Number of panels: 675
Annual kWh generation: 321.22MWh
