Renewable energy projects

One building, several technologies

Fitting one low carbon technology is straightforward. Fitting four into the same property is a coordination job, and it is where most of the difficulty actually sits. Solar, battery storage, a car charger and mechanical ventilation all land on the same consumer unit, and each of them assumes it has the headroom it needs.

The work that prevents trouble is a proper load assessment before anything is ordered. On the eco bungalow development we delivered the full electrical package alongside the renewable systems, which is the arrangement that avoids the classic problem of one trade specifying a system the incoming supply cannot actually carry.

The load calculation nobody sees

A modern low carbon home draws very differently from an older one. Electric heating or a heat pump, a shower, an induction hob and a seven kilowatt car charger can coincide, and the main fuse is often the constraint rather than the consumer unit. Establishing what the supply can carry, and whether load management or a supply upgrade is needed, belongs at the design stage.

Load management is frequently the cheaper answer. A charger that can throttle when the rest of the house is drawing heavily will often let a property keep its existing supply, where a fixed output unit would have forced an upgrade.

Across a whole development

On a multi plot site the same decisions repeat, which is an advantage if they are made once and applied consistently. On the residential development we completed for Belvin Construction, the electrical and renewable installation ran across all the plots, so the inverter positions, the charge point supplies and the certification pack followed one pattern rather than being solved plot by plot.

That consistency matters at handover as much as during the build. A developer needs the certificates, the MCS documentation and the commissioning records to arrive in one recognisable set, because those documents follow the property for years and get asked for at sale.