Case study · Commercial

Loch Ness Hub: a renewables system that grew with the business.

We commissioned the original install — Solar PV and a Vaillant 7 kW air source heat pump — in March 2021, part-funded through CARES. On a return visit later we added battery storage and an Easee EV charger as the site's needs grew. An ongoing relationship with a working tourism business on the shore of Loch Ness.

Customer: Loch Ness Hub
Location: Loch Ness, Scotland
System: Solar PV · Vaillant 7 kW air source heat pump · Battery storage · Easee EV charger
Installed: 9 March 2021 (initial), with battery + EV added on return visit

Original install part-funded via CARES (Community and Renewable Energy Scheme)

The starting point

A working tourism site, decarbonising in stages.

Loch Ness Hub is an active visitor destination on the Loch Ness shore. Like many Scottish tourism businesses, they were facing rising fuel and grid-electricity costs and a guest expectation of low-carbon credentials — with the practical reality that their operating windows left little room for an install that would shut the site down.

They came to us with funding lined up through CARES, the Scottish Government's Community and Renewable Energy Scheme, and a brief to put a serious renewable heating and generation system in without compromising the day-to-day running of the site.

Phase one: the original install (March 2021)

Vaillant 7 kW heat pump and solar PV, CARES-funded.

The original install paired a Vaillant 7 kW air source heat pump for space heating and hot water with a roof-mounted solar PV array sized to offset a meaningful share of the site's daytime electricity demand.

The outdoor heat-pump unit sits in a working site area, so we fitted a protective car-park cage around it — vehicle protection without restricting airflow. It's a small detail that matters on commercial sites where the unit isn't tucked away at the side of a house.

Everything was scheduled around the site's operational calendar so the business could keep running through the works, and the system was commissioned on 9 March 2021 — late Scottish winter, in the kind of weather Loch Ness Hub's own testimonial described as "challenging conditions".

Phase two: return visit

Battery storage and an Easee EV charger added later.

As the site's needs evolved, the customer came back to us to extend the system. We added battery storage to capture surplus solar generation and shift it into evening and overnight demand windows — pairing the existing array with storage roughly doubles the share of on-site generation the building actually uses, rather than exporting most of it.

We also installed an Easee EV charger for staff and visitor use, integrated into the same electrical infrastructure so the solar generation feeds the EV charging where it can.

That return-visit pattern — original install, then a planned upgrade as the site's needs grow — is one of the most useful things about working with a single installer who knows the existing system and can extend it cleanly rather than starting again.

In their own words

"Always easy to deal with and employees considerate, tidy and trusted on site, working in challenging conditions."

Loch Ness Hub · Loch Ness Hub (public LinkedIn endorsement)

Why this matters

Phased renewable rollouts work, when one installer carries the relationship.

Few Scottish commercial sites need (or can fund) everything at once. The Loch Ness Hub project is a good example of how a phased renewable rollout can play out: heat pump and solar in year one with CARES funding, battery and EV charging added once the operational picture firmed up and the budget allowed.

The reason it works cleanly is that the same in-house team carries the relationship across the phases. The phase-two additions slotted into the existing electrical and heating infrastructure because we already knew exactly what was there. No re-survey, no re-design from scratch, no contractor handover gaps to lose information across.

Considering a commercial install?

See the funding routes & how we work.

Most commercial and community installs in Scotland are part-funded. Our commercial page covers the funding routes — from CARES to the SME Loan + Cashback scheme — and how a funded project actually runs.

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