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Solar Solutions from Eco2Solar

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Eco2Solar are a market-leading solar panel company, specialising in electrical technologies, particularly solar photovoltaic (PV) panels for new build housing, social housing and commercial scale buildings. For over 10 years, Eco2Solar have been installing solar panels to thousands of new homes, and work with most of the largest home builders across the country.

Eco2Solar have installed solar energy onto over 5,000 buildings including many schools, hospitals, medical centres, universities, offices and distribution centres. Their methods allow them to identify and value engineer PV systems that meet planning and building regulations and create significant savings for clients.

Eco2Solar Director Paul Hutchens explains why solar PV should be higher on housebuilders’ agenda.

As well as needing to meet nationwide building regulations per house, housebuilders are given sustainability targets by their local planning authority, which specify how much energy should come from renewables per development site. These targets vary significantly depending on region; London, the South East, the Cotswolds and Scotland are currently leading the way, with as much as 20% of site-wide energy on all new build developments required to come from renewables.

But with the very real prospect of government targets to build carbon-free homes within the next few years, coupled with a growing societal focus on more sustainable living and the volatile global energy market, regional energy targets will continue to increase, and it’s happening already.

In the future, we’re also likely to see a reduction in our reliance on the power stations, with homeowners able to produce greater amounts of clean, locally-sourced energy that’s better matched to their unique usage needs and even selling surplus energy to their neighbours in the same street, village or town.

This concept may seem like a distant pipe dream at the moment, but as people become more conscious of the available resources within their home created by solar energy, a sharing economy will become much more commonplace.

So what are the best energy-saving options for housebuilders at the moment? At present, there are numerous materials and technologies developers can use to support energy targets; they could install more insulation and better windows, introduce solar thermal and heat pumps, fit solar tiles or even consider installing electric vehicle charging points, which some authorities are even specifying on plots right now.

But the problem with many of these solutions is that they are expensive to install and require constant maintenance throughout their lifetimes, which is an off-putting prospect to both developers and buyers.

Housebuilders seek technologies which are the most effective, represent the best value and which are aesthetically the most appealing, and the single most effective way to for them to achieve these objectives – as well as meeting energy targets – is solar PV.

The benefits are well documented; the price of solar PV as dropped by over 80 per cent in the last eight years and that initial lower cost comes down even further when multiple panels are installed across the same plot. And while solar roof tiles may be growing in popularity, they are currently three times the price of solar PV but offer only 90 per cent of the efficiency.

As well as being quick and unobtrusive to fit, solar panels don’t require any maintenance once they’ve been installed, and aesthetically, there have been significant developments. Gone are the days of the old blue panels jutting out eight inches above a roof; we now embed all-black integrated systems that sit directly in the roof and appear part of the house.

Solar PV is also quite a flexible technology which can be closely adapted to housebuilders’ needs. There are multiple options for colours, system types, flashings and fittings that can be matched to fit a particular house or development; this flexibility also enables us to find the most cost-efficient solution for each project.

Find out more at eco2solar.co.uk

Contact details :
Paul Hutchens
Managing Director
Eco2 Solar Ltd
Summerfield House
Arthur Drive
Hoo Farm Industrial Estate
Kidderminster
Worcestershire
DY11 7SL
Tel- 01562977977
Email – enquiries@eco2solar.co.uk

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