Clayton Caravan Park

Clayton Caravan Park is a luxury holiday park and leisure business in the East Neuk of Fife, located in a scenic tranquil setting near St Andrews. The holiday park has 700 caravans for guests and a range of on-site facilities, including a restaurant, bar and a leisure centre with a swimming pool, gym and sauna.

Managing Director, Andrew Kennedy became concerned post-Covid when, like many businesses, the holiday park was struck with a surge in electricity costs.

“Our energy bills surged, with a huge increase in December 2022, and I knew we needed to change our approach. The significant increase in running costs meant that we had to find a solution to become less reliant on energy from the grid. The big energy users at the time were our leisure centre and swimming pool, restaurant and bar, and main reception area. So we decided to invest in solar PV to take control of our energy usage.

“I know several businesses, including local farmers, who have used Forster Group in the past and are extremely happy with their results, which is why we decided to use them for our solar PV installation.”

Installation across three key areas of the site was completed in Summer 2023, including:

● Restaurant, kitchen and games arcade: 26.73kWp system with 2 Fronius inverters and 89 Viridian integrated modules. Projected 7.2 year payback, 17.35% ROI.

● Main office, laundry room and reception: 14.58kWp system with 1 Fronius inverter and 36 Viridian integrated modules. Projected 8.8 year payback, 13.27% ROI.

● Leisure centre and swimming pool: 52.48kWp system with 2 Fronius inverters and 128 JA Solar 410W panels. Projected 3.4 year payback, 36.83% ROI.

The solar panels now provide 30-40% of the energy used across those buildings and will reduce energy bills by approximately 15% per year, resulting in a massive saving on overheads for the business.

“Our solar installation is already saving us considerable sums of money. It also adds to our green credentials as a business by helping us to lower our carbon footprint.

“We would absolutely recommend Forster Group to anyone looking to have solar installed. The entire process was very smooth – from initial meetings, design and planning, through to installation. The engineers who carried out the job were excellent and completed the project within the promised timescales. The panels are working very well and the amount of energy savings we’ve made so far delivers on Forster’s figures that were promised at the outset.”

Work is currently underway with Forster Group for Clayton Caravan Park Limited’s next phase of installation. This will be two larger ground-mounted solar projects which will feed into the main electric usage for the caravan park.