A McDonald’s franchisee has selected four of Alpha’s SolarSmart systems to be installed across sites in Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, to help generate both financial and carbon savings over the next few years.
Alpha’s SolarSmart was selected to help ensure long-term savings were possible in terms of reducing the carbon emissions from each site, delivering a more eco friendly alternative when supplying hot water. As a result, the installation has seen a 23.33% energy consumption saving since the system was fitted, which equates to an annual financial saving of around £2,510 making SolarSmart a worthwhile addition to the McDonald’s sites.
Eddie Leligdowicz, the McDonald’s franchisee explains: “Alpha’s SolarSmart unit offered the complete package. Due to the integration of the solar panel, which allows water to be pre-heated meaning less energy is required overall, the SolarSmart units are helping us to reduce the carbon footprint of the sites in which they are installed. As a matter of fact, the readings from the same four month periods have been compared and show that before FlowSmart was installed, energy consumption levels were at 2845 units compared to just 2181 after the system was installed.”
He continued: “From a financial aspect, SolarSmart units deliver a far more favourable cost of ownership meaning maintenance, repair and servicing costs are kept to a minimum. These saving measures coupled with the outstanding level of performance offered by Alpha’s SolarSmart unit make it the ideal addition to the McDonalds restaurants on my portfolio.”
SolarSmart works with a combination boiler, unlike traditional solar thermal systems that use a standard boiler, to deliver a back-up heat supply should it be required. The stored volume of hot water however is heated only by the collected solar energy, so no gas is used in maintaining the cylinder temperature. As such, energy consumption is reduced making the system more efficient all round.
“The installation and day to day running of these SolarSmart units has been so successful that I plan to use them at additional McDonald’s sites in the future to help ensure that those for which I am a franchisee are equipped with the most energy efficient hot water generating systems possible,” Eddie concluded.
Steve Hopkins, Product Marketing Manager at Alpha Heating Innovation, said: “Our SolarSmart unit is ideal for installation in a setting such as McDonalds due to its ability to cope with ongoing hot water demands. From an environmental perspective, the unit itself proves to be very carbon efficient by only using a minimum amount of gas to bring the stored water up to the required temperature if needed.”