Buckland Estate: power you can count on for the big day

The challenge

One day to get right, and a supply that couldn’t keep up

Buckland Estate is a wedding venue. When a couple has one day to get right, the lights, the music, the kitchen and the bar can’t drop out halfway through the speeches. For the owner, power reliability was the top priority, for his business and for the special days his guests share at the estate.

The property didn’t make that easy. It had a 2-phase grid supply that was already supply constrained, on a big rural site with a house, workshop, barns, granary and silo, caravan sites and event spaces, and more cabins and caravan sites planned. The existing switchboards also needed work to bring them up to standard.

What we did

More than one way to keep the power on

The objective was to create a robust, reliable microgrid that used parts of the existing infrastructure, upgrading and improving it where required. The end result: three different potential sources of power, so the site has the utmost reliability. We started with a detailed site investigation and audit to understand the problems and constraints on site. With that information, we worked through several design iterations to optimise and refine the design into the best possible outcome for the client.

• A new heart for the site: We rewired the property from a new, central main switchboard location, and replaced and upgraded every switchboard to current standards.
• Three-phase underground: New underground three-phase runs to the main house, the workshop, the new powered van sites and a pillar ready for a future cabin.
• Solar and battery: 207 Tongwei 475 W panels (about 98.3 kW), 2 × SAJ CHS2 50 kW inverters, each with a 100.3 kWh battery (200.6 kWh of storage in total), plus 2 × 50 kVA inverters, for about 200 kVA of inverter capacity in total.
• Solar and generator, alone or together: A 220 kVA Genesys/Blue Diamond GEN220CT generator with changeover. The solar and generator can run independently or together, depending on the loads they need to handle. In extreme cases the two can be stacked to create extra capacity on site.
• Off-grid, with the grid kept for emergencies: The estate runs off-grid when the system is carrying the loads. We retained the existing 2-phase grid connection, and in an emergency the system can be isolated so grid power runs through to the site.
• Built for what’s next: The infrastructure, designs and connecting infrastructure were all sized for potential future expansion without over-capitalising on labour and materials, leaving headroom for future increases and system expansion.
• Estate works & handover: Workshop outlets, RGB floodlighting on the workshop, silo, barn and granary, chandelier barn power and lighting, and caravan power via four pillars with 12 outlets. Elekeeper monitoring handed over in person in October 2026.

Delivery was scheduled and managed around the client’s operating schedule. The estate kept trading throughout, with no loss of revenue while the system was being installed.