New Homes at River’s Gate
Newcastle

River’s Gate is a development of 68 dwellings in phase one, compromising of 51 houses and 17 flats. Places for People, the site developer, aimed to achieve an EcoHomes Excellent rating, so Viridian Solar was brought in to help contribute to this by providing renewable energy totalling more than 10% of the predicted energy use.

Viridian Solar worked alongside the design team to identify appropriate houses on site which could successfully integrate solar hot water heating into their design, and calculated a solar panel provision which exceeded that target.

Although the site layout was fixed before the decision to use solar water heating was taken, it was still possible for forty-four out of fifty one houses to benefit from solar. Those which could not utilise solar had a mono-pitched roof facing towards the North or were over shadowed by adjacent roofs.

Installation

Viridian’s Clearline solar panels are unique in the way that they separate the roofing work from plumbing tasks. The solar panels were fitted by the roofing contractor, without the need for plumbers to work at height, and giving a single point of responsibility for the weather-tightness of the roof. The plumbing contractor attended at the normal time in the construction process to make the connections between the solar panel, control set and twin coil hot water cylinder.

At the end of this phase one development, solar hot water heating reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 11.5 tonnes/year saving 59,000 kWh/year of energy. The total installed area came to 138m².

”I never though solar could be so easy“ - Gary Blake, Mansell Construction

If you want to find more about integrating solar water heating technologies in your development, commercial premise or home, please contact our member companies for more assistance.

Back to case studies