SOLAR panels which can be seen glistening from Castle Hill are helping to save a top Huddersfield firm thousands of pounds on energy bills.

Cummins Turbo Technologies opened its doors to show off the 256 solar panels on the roof of the St Andrew’s Road facilities building.

Capable of providing 190watts each, the panels are expected to save Cummins £35,000 a year in its energy bills.

Jenny Hirst, Cummins’ energy engineer, and Dean Staveley, of Holmfirth-based Newgen which installed the solar panels, explained their purpose to the Examiner.

Currently the solar panels are generating around 66% of the St Andrew’s Road building’s energy supplies and Jenny hopes it will be entirely self-sufficient.

Jenny, whose role is to promote and devise energy-boosting schemes at Cummins, said: “This is a first for me and for Cummins, we’re the pilot scheme and if it goes well here then it will be rolled out at our other sites.

“It’s my job to look at ways of reducing our energy bills at the site – the solar panels will generate about 66% of energy for the main building but that’s just a start.

“I want to get that building entirely eco-friendly.”

There was much preparation work needed before the solar panels could be installed.

Jenny explained: “The whole roof had to be replaced, it was a flat roof which had asbestos in it.

“So the total cost to us was about £166,000, which was higher than the cost of the solar panels because of the work we needed to do before they could be installed.”