380 kW Solar PV on a Tier III Enterprise Data Centre — Manchester, Trafford Park

Project background

The Manchester metropolitan area is the UK’s third-largest data centre market by installed IT capacity, behind London and the Thames Valley. Trafford Park — a 1,200-acre industrial estate three miles west of Manchester city centre, served by Electricity North West (ENW) — hosts a cluster of enterprise and managed services data centre facilities that grew out of the manufacturing and logistics infrastructure originally occupying the site.

This project involved an enterprise on-premise data centre facility: a corporate computing environment built and operated by a single organisation for their own use, rather than a colocation facility serving multiple tenants. The facility operates at Tier III standard with a 2.8 MW average IT load — significant by enterprise standards, but modest compared to hyperscale facilities.

The Trafford Park site context introduces a power quality requirement that is unusual in pure data centre work: the immediate neighbourhood includes active manufacturing operations drawing large inductive loads, and the local ENW substation supplies a mixed industrial and data centre load. This creates a harmonic environment that required specific inverter selection and electrical design review.

The facility

The building is a converted industrial building — a former manufacturing facility adapted for data centre use in 2011 — approximately 7,500 sqm gross floor area. The flat roof (minimal pitch, EPDM membrane) had been identified as suitable for solar PV in a 2019 feasibility study by the operator’s in-house estates team, but the project was deferred due to COVID-19 and the 2021–2022 equipment supply chain disruptions.

The roof is structurally sound (confirmed in a 2024 structural survey by the client’s appointed structural engineer) with loading capacity of 35 kg/sqm available for solar mounting after deducting existing plant loads. Available solar PV area is 4,600 sqm, limited primarily by plant rooms and smoke extraction equipment in the centre of the roof.

The facility’s electricity supply is provided via a dedicated 11kV/415V transformer on site, owned by the operator. The ENW G99 Protection Relay application is made at the point of connection to the ENW 11kV feeder.

Power quality: the harmonic requirement

Harmonics are distortions in the AC waveform caused by non-linear loads — variable speed drives in manufacturing equipment, UPS systems, and rectifier-based power supplies all generate harmonics. In a mixed industrial zone, the background harmonic distortion on the local grid can be elevated. Data centre operations teams are sensitive to power quality because UPS input rectifiers and PDU power supplies perform best on clean sinusoidal power. High harmonics can increase UPS heat generation and, in severe cases, affect load performance.

Solar inverters themselves generate harmonics on their AC output — they use pulse-width modulation (PWM) switching to produce a sinusoidal AC waveform from DC, and this process inherently creates some harmonic content. Standard commercial inverters achieve total harmonic distortion (THD) of 2–3% at rated output, which is well within IEEE 519 and G5/5 limits. In a clean grid environment, this is entirely acceptable.

The Trafford Park grid environment at this site is not a clean grid environment. A 2024 power quality survey commissioned by the operator identified background THD of 4.1% on the LV bus, driven by the manufacturing loads on the same ENW substation. Adding standard inverters in this environment would have pushed total site THD above the recommended 5% threshold under G5/5 Part 2.

Our solution was to specify SMA Sunny Tripower Core2 50kW inverters — a model whose active filtering capability reduces output THD to below 1.5% at rated output, compared to the 2.5–3% typical of standard inverters in the same class. Eight inverters at 50 kW were specified, with two combined in a local distribution board to give a 380 kW AC output. The electrical design was peer-reviewed by an independent chartered electrical engineer with G5/5 expertise.

System design

The 380 kW array uses 754 Qcells Q.PEAK DUO BLK 505Wh modules — a black-frame, full-black aesthetics specification selected by the client’s sustainability team for visual consistency from the main road adjacent to the building. The ballasted mounting uses a Renusol ConSole+ system in landscape portrait orientation at 10° pitch.

DC cable runs are kept below 40 metres from string combiner boxes to inverters, mounted in IP66 weatherproof enclosures on the parapet wall. AC connection is at the operator’s dedicated 415V LV board adjacent to the main plant room.

The ENW G99 Protection Relay application was submitted under the simplified notification route (complex generation >50 kW, but under the site’s existing DNO connection capacity). ENW approved the connection in 31 working days — within the 65-day statutory target and faster than the average for ENW G99 applications.

System summary:

• Array capacity: 380 kW (754 × 505 Wp Qcells Q.PEAK DUO BLK)
• Inverters: 8 × SMA Sunny Tripower Core2 50 (low-THD active filter)
• Mounting: Renusol ConSole+ ballasted, 10° portrait
• Grid connection: ENW G99 (31 working days)
• Power quality: THD <1.5% inverter output (P.Q. assessment passed G5/5 Part 2)
• Monitoring: SMA Monitoring with API integration to client BMS

Manchester irradiance and generation

Manchester receives approximately 1,380 hours of sunshine annually — significantly less than southern England locations such as Slough (1,620 hours) or Crawley (1,650 hours). This affects annual generation yield per kW of installed capacity but does not fundamentally alter the economics of large-scale solar where the main variable is the avoided electricity cost.

The modelled P50 annual generation for this system is 322,060 kWh — approximately 847 kWh per kW installed, compared to 900–1,000 kWh/kW typical for South East England installations. At the client’s 22p/kWh grid rate, this generates £70,800 of annual savings — a lower absolute figure than our southern sites but consistent with the capital cost (£430,000) that reflects a smaller and somewhat less complex installation than the Tier IV London project.

Results

The system was commissioned in February 2025 and has completed one full operational year including a summer generation peak.

• Annual generation (modelled P50): 322,060 kWh
• Self-consumption ratio: 98.2% (minor export on weekend/holiday periods when IT load drops)
• Annual electricity cost saving (year 1): £70,800 at 22p/kWh
• CO₂ avoided: 45.1 tonnes CO₂e
• Capital cost: £430,000 (ex-VAT)
• Full Expensing tax relief (25% CT): £107,500 in year of expenditure
• Net capital cost after tax: £322,500
• Simple payback (pre-tax): 6.1 years
• Post-tax payback: 4.6 years
• Project IRR (25-year DCF): 15%

Scope 2 outcome and PPA combination

The operator holds a separate corporate wind PPA through Drax, providing approximately 85% of their annual electricity from renewable generation under market-based Scope 2 accounting. The solar PV installation adds approximately 322,000 kWh of on-site generation with direct REGO issuance — distinctly different from the off-site PPA because the generation is geographically co-located with the consumption and independently auditable.

The combination of on-site solar (Scope 2 zero on solar fraction) and the Drax wind PPA achieves market-based Scope 2 zero on approximately 90% of total consumption. The residual 10% is covered by the operator’s Guarantees of Origin (GOs) through their electricity supplier.

Reference availability

DC-MCR-003 is available as a reference for enterprise on-premise data centre projects, ENW grid connection, Trafford Park / Greater Manchester locations, and power quality in industrial environments. Reference calls arranged under NDA.