How we construct, heat, light, and maintain buildings, accounts for 40% of energy usage in Europe. As the construction industry is beginning to prioritise building sustainability, solar panels are becoming a common feature of new build houses.

Overcoming Issues To Move A Historic Site Forward

Visionary developers Elite NuGen bought part of a historic ordinance yard in Portsmouth, creating nine ultra-modern, forward-looking houses set between Grade 2 listed walls. After attempting twice before when talking to larger developers, Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust turned to Elite NuGen for an alternative, modular approach to redeveloping Priddy’s Hard peninsula. After consultation between a number of parties including planners, Historic England, ecologists and architects agreed a scheme of 30 houses, including the renovation of a Grade 2 listed building.

Where Style And Sustainability Meet

The idea behind the developments was to create self-sufficient units, integrating battery storage packs, photovoltaic panels, and infrared heating without any visual impact on homes, given that they were in a historic conservation area. Combining GSE’s ultra-thin 3mm PV panels with Sandtoft tiles, VELUX roof windows and Wonderwall’s AI light and heat control systems, they created a very clean-looking flat system that works in a listed building context or a conservation area.

David Craddock, founder of Elite NuGen Homes, said: “Every building has to be its own self energy generating source. As soon as you put a roof window into that, you’re removing some of that potential energy generation. This means that you want to reduce the amount of area around that’s just created for fixings and finishes, and the integrated solution with GSE’s PV and VELUX really helped us do that.”

Delivering On Daylight

In England, changing legislation will see many roofs filled with photovoltaic panels. Elite NuGen and VELUX® know that homeowners should not have to choose between the optimisation of daylight and sustainable energy solutions.

Daylight is essential when we consider that we spend on average 90% of our time indoors, so the homes we live in do not just need to be good, they need to create a real sense of wellbeing.

David Craddock continued: “We recently used the VELUX PV Solar Integrator, combining VELUX roof windows and GSE PV Solar panels on our award-winning development at Priddy’s Hard, Gosport. The specially designed flashing allowing both products to be installed side by side, has created a seamless integration which looks great. Being able to combine the benefit of bringing daylight through the roof, whilst supporting net zero ambitions through use of renewable technologies, really helps us create sustainable, low-energy homes.”

About Elite NuGen

As a property developer operating in the UK, Elite NuGen produces creative, desirable and profitable solutions that specialises in transforming land into high-quality, affordable dwellings for a rapidly growing housing market.

The company has won numerous awards, including the prestigious British Homes Awards, winning Sustainable Development of the Year. Recently, Elite NuGen’s partnership with VELUX resulted in a housebuilder product award at the Housebuilder 2022 Awards. It offered housebuilders an innovative solution by combining VELUX windows with GSE PV Solar panels, and combined the benefit of natural daylight whilst supporting net zero ambitions through the use of renewable technologies.

Source: Show House News