October 14, 2024 Commercial Solar Power, ESG Goals

Solar Power and ESG – the challenges and opportunities

If solar power is right for your business, there’s a high (and guaranteed) ROI, it could be a large stride towards energy independence, and it will represent decisive progress for your ESG goals.

In order to maximise those advantages, there are some best practices to remember.

Three important principles for solar power and Business ESG are:

Mitigating power lower outputs in the winter

Ensuring scope 3 emissions don’t undermine your ESG progress

Gathering environmental data for reporting purposes

Here’s how to tick all of those boxes.

How to adapt to lower solar power output in the winter

Obviously, less sunlight means less electricity generated, so during the darker months, you need to be smart about your solar power.

One technique is to use battery storage so that you store any excess power to use when you are generating less. Making hay (or in this case power) while the sun shines, so to speak.

Smart devices can also draw power from batteries during peak times, so that you don’t have to pay for grid electricity if your panels aren’t generating; instead you use stored electricity that is essentially free.

Another approach is ‘timeshifting’, and choosing to run the most energy-intensive operations when the panels are most productive, so that you relieve the burden on your batteries and save as much stored energy as possible.

How to keep your Scope 3 emissions down

Scope 3 emissions (the emissions of your suppliers and partners) can silently undermine your ESG credentials. When you work with other businesses, their environmental impact is yours too. If you don’t know your suppliers’ emissions data, then of course you’ll need to find that out. If their impact is poor, then you should seek assurances and details of their remediation efforts.

If they don’t know their own impact, then they may not be a suitable partner, unless they are willing to quickly change their attitude to ESG.

A Green paper windmill with a blue sky behind it

How to gather and report your energy and environmental data

Thorough ESG reporting requires hard facts and substantial data. If you can report not just your total solar generation, but also your system’s performance data and your business’s consumption patterns, you demonstrate your commitment to your ESG goals as well as the concrete action you have taken in support of them.

Innasol’s active monitoring service provides real-time data which both provides the details of your renewable energy generation, but helps you actively monitor the systems and maintain optimal performance.

Start making real progress towards your ESG goals

Innasol is one of Europe’s fastest-growing renewable energy firms.

We have been the exclusive supplier of industry-leading biomass heating solutions in the UK with our partner, ETA, since 2011. Our team has decades’ more experience across renewable energy, including solar, which has cemented our reputation for quality.

Our commitment is to create a cleaner, zero-carbon future that ends our dependence on the polluting, unpredictable fossil fuels market.

To speak to a solar energy expert today, call 01621 892613.