Darlington Farmers Auction Mart

Darlington Farmers Auction Mart is a busy agricultural trading venue — stock and produce moving through a large, part-open site that needs reliable power and lighting across the whole footprint.

The work here was a full electrical installation. That meant internal and external power, lighting and controls for a working mart, and the data, fire and security systems a public venue of that size has to have. It is exactly the kind of whole-building job G Smith is built for: the electrical infrastructure first, done properly.

On top of that, a 30 kWp solar array was added to take the sting out of the running costs of a venue that gets through a lot of electricity. Sized to the mart’s own daytime demand, it pays for itself in about 3.4 years and keeps trimming the bills long after that.

Doing both the electrical fit-out and the solar under one roof meant the array tied cleanly into the distribution G Smith had just installed — one job, one team, one set of drawings, rather than a solar firm bolting panels onto someone else’s wiring.

A livestock and produce mart is a demanding building electrically: large open spaces to light, external areas to power, and public-safety systems that have to be right. Handling all of it as one installation — and sizing the solar to the mart’s own daytime pattern of use — meant the whole site was designed together rather than bolted together over the years.