Bottle Yard’s new studio to be solar powered
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The Bottle Yard Studios’ new facility, TBY2, will be powered by a giant array of more than 2000 solar panels when it opens in the autumn.
The huge 1MWp structure will be one of the biggest community-owned solar rooftop array in the West of England and one of the biggest of its kind in the UK.
The solar array is being funded by the latest share offer of the Bristol Energy Cooperative (BEC), the community-owned energy cooperative.
Bristol City Council, which owns and runs The Bottle Yard Studios, initially planned to install a 283kWp solar array on the rooftop of the Studios’ expansion facility TBY2, but as a result of funding from BEC, the final array will be more than three times larger than originally planned. It will be installed by Solar South West.
Laura Aviles, senior film manager (Bristol City Council), who oversees The Bottle Yard Studios, said: “Our new TBY2 facility has been designed and built with sustainability in mind at every stage, with premium insulation throughout and a sophisticated building management system to ensure optimal energy conservation.
“We’re hugely proud that the exterior of the building is being put to such valuable use, hosting a community-owned PV array of this size which will generate a huge amount of clean energy to power the site, with surplus energy benefitting the city of Bristol.”
Councillor Kye Dudd, cabinet member for Climate, Ecology, Waste and Energy, commented: "The Bottle Yard’s new TBY2 facility and what it can offer to Bristol is immense. It’s not just the growth in film and TV production for the city, but it’s the commitment to help deliver Bristol’s 2030 carbon neutral ambition and the community and partnership working that underpins it.”
Eventually, surplus energy produced at the TBY2 facility will be utilised through the City Leap Sleeved Pool electricity supply model, approved by Bristol City Council’s cabinet earlier this year. The model connects buildings, and ‘sleeves’ surplus energy generated from one building over to another, to reduce energy consumption from non-renewables.
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