New Speculative Building has 504 solar panels.

Wykeland has turned to solar energy to help power its latest speculative development at Meltonwest Business Park.

Construction of the new 50,480 sqft state-of-the-art industrial building 10 miles to the west of Hull city centre, the only significant speculative development of it’s kind in Yorkshire for two years, is almost complete.

To help power the unit, Wykeland commissioned Driffield-based solar and renewables specialists, Dodds Solar, to install more than 500 Mitsubishi 225 watt solar photovoltaic panels on the roof, requiring enough cabling to go around more than 15 full-size soccer pitches.

The installation which took just two weeks to complete is one of the largest of its kind in the Humber region and will produce more than 92,000 kilowatt hours of ‘free’ energy in a year as well as off-setting 52.5 tonnes of CO2, making it one of the greenest industrial premises in the region.

Wykeland Managing Director, Dominic Gibbons, said “As well as demonstrating confidence in our home region by committing significant speculative funding to this project, we are also showing our belief in solar energy as a genuine and economically beneficial power generation alternative”.

“We chose Dodds Solar, not just for their expertise in solar photovoltaic installations, but because they have an excellent reputation going back more than 15 years as roofing contractors on major contracts. On a building of this size we had to appoint a firm with a proven track record.”

Dodds Solar Maging Director, Graham Dodds said ” Earlier this year, we installed a much smaller solar system on the roof at Wykeland’s headquarters in Queen Street and we know they are a company that recognises the potential value in solar energy. The Meltonwest project is a great example of how we can use a natural resource to power our work-place whilst helping to protect our climate and environment”.

The speculative building has been designed to suit a range of manufacturing and warehousing uses and Dominic Gibbons added “Our vision for Meltonwest is to create a completely new style of Business Park with high quality buildings in a landscaped environment”.