Mercure Hotel Orange Solar Upgrade

When you’re designing solar for commercial sites, the panels are only part of the story. The real performance wins often come down to smart electrical design — especially inverter selection, string configuration, monitoring, and how you handle shading.

In Andrew’s latest footage, you’ll spot two separate commercial installs in Orange: Mercure Hotel (Byng Street) and Orange Ex-Services’ Club (Anson Street). Both projects used high-output JA Solar modules, but each site needed a different approach to get the best real-world results.

Project at a glance

Solar array: 227 × JA Solar DeepBlue 4.0 Pro 440 W panels
System size: ~99.88 kW DC
Inverter design (tailored for shading):
1 × SolarEdge SE30K (30 kW) for the shading-impacted roof section
SolarEdge S440 optimisers (95 units) on that front section
1 × Sungrow SG50CX-P2 (50 kW) for the remaining array area

Expected impact

This system is built to drive meaningful reductions in daytime grid consumption and deliver reliable long-term returns—without letting shaded roof sections compromise performance.

Based on the project modelling, the installation also delivers strong environmental benefits, with annual impact estimates equivalent to planting 2,841 trees per year, and avoiding 47,199 litres of petrol and 53,642 kg of coal annually.