Communal solar energy tech showcased in Wales

The Welsh government is showcasing technology to provide solar energy to blocks of flats and wants to encourage developers to install more.

Working with housing association Wales and West Housing, the government has installed a communal solar panel system to a block of 24 flats in Cardiff.

Installing solar energy generation to residential blocks ordinarily involves supplying individual systems to each flat. This ramps up costs.

In the case of Odet Court this would have meant 24 sets of panels, inverters and batteries. Instead, the SolShare solution connects the flats to a single rooftop solar PV system.

Executive director (assets) at Wales and West Housing, Joanna Davoile, said the housing association had found retrofitting homes with energy saving tech a “challenge”.

But she said the single solar PV system, “seems to be a much fairer solution as the energy generated by the building can be shared equally to help our residents keep their electricity costs down rather than going back to the grid”.

Australian firm Allume Energy developed the technology, which can cut household electricity bills by up to half. It can be applied to new developments and also retrofitted.

Allume said it has reduced the cost of the hardware, footprint, and installation costs compared to a typical system. Other benefits include improved solar utilisation by more than 25% due to ‘dynamic sharing’ of energy among the flats.

Climate change minister Julie James said: “At a time when costs are rising, improving the energy efficiency of homes will not only help us to deal with the climate emergency but also help families through the cost of living crisis.”

Allume Energy general manager Europe, Jack Taylor, added: “We hope it will serve as a template for governments and social housing providers in the UK to provide cost-effective energy efficiency upgrades to multi-unit residences.”