Turkey farmer switches to Victron Energy off-grid battery storage system with the help of Energy Monkey Ltd

This is Will from Meadowbrook Turkey’s who has just switched to a Victron Energy off-grid battery storage system. Will is a turkey farmer and has 50 acres of land set in East Sussex in the southeast of England. On the land there are several barns, turkey shed’s and now a new welfare building. The farm is used to rear and raise turkey’s ready to sell to the trade and the public for the festive period.

Day old turkeys arrive at the farm in June and grow to various sizes just in time for the traditional festive meal in December. They are all slow growing breeds so take 6 months to reach maturity, over twice the growing period of most mass produced supermarket birds. After the first month in a brooding shed the turkeys move to the larger sheds and at around 6 or 7 weeks they are introduced to the outdoors. 

The farm is completely off-grid with no power or water. Up until recently the farm has been powered with a large diesel generator, which is both costly and noisy. The average spend to keep the engine on for the generator was up to £50 a day, sometimes just for the smallest of tasks.

Will set about to complete research in relation to different options available to him to get power to the farm. Last year (2021) that cost was £13,000. This year (2022) that cost has gone up to £18,000. In addition to this there was the cost of the cable, with an approximate cost of £10,000. So just for the basics, Will was looking at an approximate cost of £30,000 and that was with Will doing the majority of the work himself i.e digging the trenches and connecting it all up. So what was a better option for Will? Perhaps a Victron Energy off-grid battery storage system..

When Meadowbrook Turkey’s met Energy Monkey Ltd… 

Will contacted the team at Energy Monkey to enquire about Solar and Battery Storage. The brief given to Paul Collins at Energy Monkey Ltd was basically to design a solar system that would be kept entirely off grid that would give Will and Meadowbrook Turkey’s all the power that they needed in the newly constructed welfare building. The welfare building includes an office, kitchen and welfare facilities such as showers. Essentially the design brief was to power this welfare building which would have similar loads as a small house.

Energy Monkey Ltd have been designing bespoke offgrid kits for many years and designed Will a system that would power everything he needed in the Welfare unit and which would also make it future proof, meaning that he could add to the system when he was ready. After discussing Wills requirements in detail Paul then designed a system bespoke for Will. This system included;

Quattro 48/10000/140-100/100 230V VE.Bus
Cerbo GX
GX Touch 50
Pylontech 2.4kWh LiFePo4 Batteries x8
JA Solar 340w Mono Black Frame x20
SmartSolar MPPT 250/100-Tr VE.Can
Lynx Distributor
Interface MK3-USB (V.E Bus to USB)
Cabling, assessories and fuses

After much though, Will gave the go ahead on the order. Once he received the delivery he then set about installing everything himself.

The install was completed and Energy Monkey commissioned the system (normally completed remotely). The system that has been designed and installed converts sunlight to electricity which then charges the lithium batteries. The inverter charger in this system gives a maximum output of 8000 watts from the batteries but also has the capability to transfer 100 amps from a generator as a back up for more power. The system has been designed in a way that it can be added to in the future should Will decide that he wants to add more solar, wind turbine or more batteries.

Whilst most of our packages use the same core components, they are all bespoke dependant upon our customers needs. For more information about this set-up or how we could help you before self sufficient please contact us today on +44 (0) 1452 699300 or email info@energymonkey.co.uk