Australian Allume Energy, Wales & West Housing and the Welsh Government announced the first installation of Allume’s SolShare technology for the UK’s housing sector, to provide clean, affordable electricity to residential flats in Cardiff.
1. SolShare
Residential flats in the Cardiff’s Odet Court housing complex are enjoying “world-first” technology that allows solar energy from a single rooftop system to be shared by multiple residences in the same building.
The 24-apartment in Cardiff is featuring SolShare equipment from Australian solar energy company Allume. With the new system, residents are set to save 50% off their energy bills since the new technology can supply between 55% to 75% of each flat’s electricity demand.
“Wales is leading the way with the installation of this new technology,” said Jack Taylor, General Manager Europe, Allume Energy. “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.”
Given its potential, SolShare has been specified in the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund’s Wave 1 and Wave 2.1 applications by a number of local authorities and housing associations in the UK, according to Allume’s press statement.
This is an exciting first of its kind project for Wales and exactly the type of thinking we need to see within the housing sector.
Julie James, Climate Change Minister
2. Funding
The Welsh government, together with Wales & West Housing, funded the project as part of the Optimised Retrofit Programme, which is an approach to decarbonizing existing homes. Up until now, developers had no other option but to install individual solar systems for every apartment, which was mostly impractical due to cost, footprint, and inefficient energy utilization.
The SolShare system seems to be a much fairer solution as the energy generated by the building can be shared equally to help our residents to keep their electricity costs down rather than going back to the grid.
Joanna Davoile, Executive Director at Wales & West Housing
The solar plus battery system developed by Allume was installed by local solar contractor Green Park Power and will annually produce 50,248 kWh of green solar energy for the direct benefit of residents. Each flat will equally share the energy produced, resulting in 2,094 kWh per unit.
