To our knowledge, we are the only solar water heating installers to have their own independent research facility. We have real, empirical data on the performance of our panels here in the South West of England. It means we can be confident in the claims we make to our customers.

Our facility is at Berwick St Leonard, in south Wiltshire. Here we have a partnership with the Keystone Brewery, a recently established brewer that uses local produce and traditional equipment to produce real ales of character (we've tried them!). We have also received help and cooperation from their landlord at the Fonthill Estate.

In return for putting as many panels as we wish on the Brewery's unshaded, south-facing roof, and by installing monitoring equipment on the upper floor, the Brewery gets the free benefit of any hot water we provide, while we get the benefit of round-the-clock monitoring and testing to see that our panels are as efficient as we claim. We are very careful what we say to our customers. Out test site is our guide.

The test site enables us to do three key things:

1. To test the products that we sell, making sure that we continue to deliver solar systems of the highest standard;
2. To experiment with different ways of plumbing the panels into the existing hot water system of a property, to make installations easier and more efficient;
3. To obtain quantitative data that we can share with our customers on exactly how much heat the system will produce under different weather conditions and at different times of year.

We are collecting huge amounts of data – 20 variables measured every 10 seconds, day in, day out. Since the facility was fully functional in March 2008 we've collected over 5 million data points. This data could hopefully have great importance and value in the battle against climate change.

© Soltrac 2010