Renewable Energy Systems for Cornwall Holiday Parks

Most Cornish static caravans built before 2015 heat with LPG combi boilers (often Truma or Whale units) or direct electric panel heaters. Both are catastrophically expensive at 2026 prices — LPG sits at 95-115p per litre and direct electric at 28-34p/kWh on commercial supplies. A typical 35ft static used 8-10 weeks per year burns £180-£280 in heating per let week. For a 200-static park that's a fuel bill north of £350,000 a season, almost all of which can be displaced.

The retrofit playbook: a small monobloc air-source heat pump (typically 5-7kW Mitsubishi Ecodan, Vaillant aroTHERM plus or Daikin Altherma 3 R) mounted on a low plinth at the caravan rear, feeding either a small UFH grid in newer 2018+ units or upgraded radiator circuits in older models. We retain the original LPG hob (most guests still want gas cooking) and add a 200L unvented cylinder for hot water. SCOP typically lands at 3.4-3.8 in Cornish climate. Each static drops from £180-£280/wk fuel cost to £55-90/wk — a 65-70% reduction.

• Capex per static: £8,800-£12,500 fully installed including cylinder, electrical upgrade and external unit acoustic enclosure
• Park-wide rollouts of 50+ statics in a single season qualify for IETF Phase 3 capex grants if total project value exceeds £100k
• Three-phase upgrades to caravan bases typically required if pre-2010 wiring — budget £400-£900 per pitch additional
• Acoustic compliance with BS 4142 critical given pitch density — we model every install

Note: BUS does not apply — caravans are not domestic dwellings under the scheme rules. The funding stack is IETF + asset finance + tax allowances rather than per-unit grants.

The single biggest unused asset on most Cornish holiday parks is the visitor car park. Solar carport canopies built from galvanised steel frame with bifacial PV laminates typically deliver 80-110 kWp per 30-bay block, generating 90,000-130,000 kWh a year in Cornish irradiance. Combined with EV chargers underneath each bay you create a self-consuming generation hub: the cars charge directly from the panels above them during daylight hours, with grid pulling for evening top-ups.

Capex sits at roughly £950-£1,250 per kWp installed (higher than rooftop because of structural steel) but the canopy itself becomes a guest amenity — shade in July, dry loading in October. Planning is generally permitted development under Class A of Part 14 of the GPDO for canopies under 9m height and within existing curtilage, though we recommend a pre-application discussion with Cornwall Council planning for any structure visible from a public footpath or AONB.

For larger parks we model the canopy as a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) opportunity — third-party investors fund the asset and you buy the power back at 14-18p/kWh fixed for 20-25 years. Zero capex, immediate margin uplift versus a 28-34p commercial supply. Our finance partners at CCS Finance Solutions can introduce three active funders currently writing PPAs in Cornwall.

Park EV demand is unlike any other commercial site. Friday afternoon arrivals plug in at 16:00-19:00 (peak grid hours), then sit on chargers overnight, then Saturday changeover sees both Friday departures and Sunday arrivals competing for sockets. Without intelligent management you'll either overload the substation or deliver 1-2kW dribble charging that frustrates guests.

Our 2026 standard park spec: 7-22kW dual-socket chargepoints from Connected Kerb, EO Charging or Project EV, deployed at roughly one socket per 8-12 pitches initially, with conduit pre-installed for full pitch-by-pitch rollout. Load management via a central controller (we use the Sync EV Hub, EO Hub or Project EV LMS) so total draw never exceeds available grid capacity after subtracting park base load and peak heating demand. Revenue managed through Monta, Charge Place Cornwall or your own white-label app — typical guest tariff 55-72p/kWh, of which 28-40p is gross margin after wholesale electricity cost.

OZEV's Workplace Charging Scheme covers staff bays only (£350 × up to 40 sockets) but the LEVI fund routed through Cornwall Council can support guest-facing infrastructure where the park signs up to Charge Place Cornwall roaming.

A 100-200 kWh commercial battery on a holiday park serves three purposes simultaneously: it shaves the Saturday changeover EV peak (avoiding DNO upgrade costs), it arbitrages cheap-rate overnight grid electricity to displace expensive peak imports, and it captures surplus solar that would otherwise export at 12-15p/kWh and re-uses it at 28-34p/kWh avoided import.

For parks on constrained substations — and large stretches of the north Cornwall coast are now at firm capacity — a battery is increasingly the only way to add EV chargers at all without a £40-150k DNO reinforcement bill. We've delivered three projects in 2025-26 where batteries unlocked EV rollouts that would otherwise have been refused connection. Asset payback typically 5.5-7 years on tariff arbitrage alone, before counting the avoided DNO capex.

Recommended kit: Tesla Megapack-Lite, BYD MC-I Cube, Pixii PowerShaper or Sungrow ST-series in 100-500 kWh blocks. We commission and provide 24/7 remote monitoring. Battery siting needs careful thought — fire spacing under BRE Digest 489 requires 3m clearance from any habitable structure or LPG storage, which in a tight park layout often pushes you to the corner of the maintenance compound.

Most parks have a central building cluster — reception, mini-supermarket, café/restaurant, indoor or outdoor pool, laundrette, amusements — drawing 40-90% of total park electricity outside guest pitches. This is your highest-IRR self-consumption opportunity. Roof-mounted solar on these flat or shallow-pitched buildings typically pays back in 4.5-6 years and the load profile (shop fridges, pool circulation pumps, laundry) maps almost perfectly onto solar generation curves.

For pools specifically, an air-source pool heat pump (Calorex, Heatstar or AquaMaster ranges) running off solar daytime delivers heated water at one-fifth the cost of LPG. Outdoor pools with solar pool covers and ASHP commonly hit 28°C from May to September on solar-only days. Indoor pools need a separate dehumidification heat recovery unit, ideally Dantherm or Calorex DHP — we've installed eleven across Cornish parks since 2022.

Café and restaurant kitchens benefit from the same heat recovery and induction approach we use in hotels and restaurants — see that page for kitchen ventilation specifics.

The 2026 grant stack for Cornish holiday parks:

• IETF Phase 3 — up to 30% capex above £100k for heat pump retrofits and energy efficiency
• LEVI fund (Cornwall Council) — guest-facing EV infrastructure where Charge Place Cornwall roaming is enabled
• Workplace Charging Scheme — £350/socket × up to 40 sockets for staff/admin bays
• SEG export tariff — Octopus Outgoing Fixed at 15p/kWh, E.ON Next at 12.5p, Good Energy at 14p as of April 2026
• 100% Annual Investment Allowance — full first-year capex deduction on plant up to £1m
• SWIG Finance — Cornish CDFI loans £10k-£500k, often blended with grants
• PPA structures — zero-capex solar canopy deployment with 20-25 year power agreements

We model the full stack at feasibility. A typical 200-pitch park 2026 master plan — 50-static heat pump retrofit, 80kWp roof solar, 60kWp canopy with 8 EV bays, 100kWh battery — comes in at £540-680k capex, with grant/PPA stack of £170-260k bringing net spend to £290-420k and payback inside 6.5 years on combined fuel saving and EV revenue.