Solar Spotlight: S.L. Horsford Passes on the Savings from Solar-Generated Power

S.L. Horsford and Co. Ltd., based in Basseterre, St. Kitts – an island in the Caribbean West Indies — is a diversified company involved in multiple trading, service and manufacturing activities through its various operating departments, subsidiaries and associated companies. Established in 1875, S.L. Horsford knows the key to longevity in a sometimes volatile business climate: evolve with the times and keep the customer’s best interests at heart. That’s why it decided to commission photovoltaic systems for several of its businesses. Not only will it significantly reduce its energy consumption and carbon footprint, but this initiative will also increase the performance of the company as a whole while placing it in an even better position to pass on benefits and savings to their loyal customer base.

Project Details

S.L.

S.L. Horsford tasked Comet Solar, an Anguilla-based solar and electrical contracting company, with designing and installing the project, which comprises solar arrays at six separate business locations across St. Kitts. Totaling 344 kW, it includes S.L. Horsford’s Furniture & Appliances (16 kW), Automotive (20 kW), Building Center (44 kW), Ocean Cold Storage Limited (44 kW), corporate office (60 kW) and Valu Mart IGA supermarket (160 kW). Collectively, it consists of 1,500 Canadian Solar 240W CS6P-240 modules and 26 SMA Sunny Tripower TL-US three-phase, transformerless inverters. While many of the individual systems have already been commissioned, the entire project is expected to produce 600,000kWh annually when complete this November.

 SMA Inverters Help Overcome System Challenges

Because St. Kitts has no formal standards for solar installations and operates on a 230V, 60Hz electrical system, Comet Solar had to be resourceful. “We had to develop our own standards and decide how to handle the mix of European and American equipment available to us and in place,” said Chris Mason, president of Comet Solar. “Finding suitable inverters that were able to work here was imperative and SMA products were the right choice. SMA’s inverter portfolio offers a range of AC voltages, and the Sunny Tripowers allowed us to modify the design of the project as we went forward to meet the client’s objectives. Access to the SMA Sunny Portal online monitoring tool is also a huge asset.”

Solar Spotlight aims to highlight SMA inverters in real-world situations. Email us with information about your SMA-powered PV projects at SocialMedia@SMA-America.com.