Holiday Village Wins Industry's Top Sustainability Award Thanks to Innovative Rooftop Solar System

• A photovoltaic system with 618 modules in 86 cottages makes the holiday village self-sufficient in electricity and generates a significant surplus, improving the company's results by up to SEK 250,000 per year, as well as attracting environmentally conscious visitors.

• The SolarEdge solution was chosen to overcome design challenges and maximise energy production - crucial to making the project viable.

29th November 2022 – Ramsvik Stugby & Camping in Hunnebostrand, in Bohuslän's outermost coastline, has won this year's sustainability award from the industry association SCR Svensk Camping after installing one of the largest solar energy systems in the Swedish hospitality industry. The innovatively designed system, which consists of 618 solar modules spread over 86 different roof surfaces, was made possible by using SolarEdge's DC-optimised technology to overcome design challenges and optimise the profitability of the project. As a result, Ramsvik is now earning up to SEK 250,000 each year through a combination of self-supply and sale of surplus energy.

Torbjörn Backlund, owner of Ramsvik Stugby & Camping, comments: "As the installation is quite complex, we chose the solution from SolarEdge following the recommendation of our installer, Apptek Teknik Applikationer. The roofs of the cottages have a variety of shapes and sizes and are located in different directions. They are also densely packed, which causes some shading problems when the sun is low. With a traditional photovoltaic system we would not have been able to use the whole roof surface and would only have been able to produce 75 kWp of electricity. SolarEdge's Power Optimizers increase the energy output of each panel, so there are no such limitations. The result is that we can produce 216 kWp of energy, almost three times as much.

"We have been very pleased with the system, which has worked very reliably since installation, despite the corrosive environment here on the west coast," he adds.  "Safety is also a very important aspect as we have hundreds of people in the direct vicinity of the plant. Here, both we and the emergency services are very satisfied with the solution. "

The Ramsvik solar plant produces 210-230,000 kWh of electricity per year – enough to cover 100% of the village's energy needs.

"The annual savings plus income was initially around SEK 100,000, but with rising energy prices the calculation is looking better and better and we expect to earn around SEK 250,000 this year. But even more important than the financial savings is the marketing value. In the tourism industry, you have to deliver what the guests want and sustainability is now one of the main requirements," explains Torbjörn Backlund.

He continues: "The solar power plant is a very visible way to show that we take sustainability seriously. Using data on the monitoring platform from SolarEdge we show in real time the progress of energy production and carbon reduction on a large screen on the outside of the reception building . This is attracting a lot of interest from our visitors and has become a real talking point. The bottom line is that our guests are demanding green energy and appreciate our efforts."

Ramsvik Stugby & Camping has been around for 65 years. The holiday village is now larger than the campsite with a total of 128 cottages on site. There is also a fine restaurant with an outstanding sea view and a popular beach. The facility, which is open from May to September, has 40,000 guest nights per year and 16,000 guests.