Specify PV that survives tender.
Planning is expensive. The DAS is fragile. The contractor will strip your spec on price if they can. We help you write PV into the drawings in a way that doesn't reopen planning, doesn't get value-engineered out, and doesn't hand the roof over to Octopus by default.
Three ways architects lose control of the PV. We work against all three.
Contractor strips it out
Once tender opens, the contractor's job is to find the cheapest module that meets the letter of the spec. We write specifications that survive that pressure, integrated, not bolt-on, so cheapening fundamentally breaks the design.
Planning gets reopened
Adding to a submission is easier than changing it. We help you build a PV addendum that fits the DAS you already have, not one that sends you back to the planners for a redraw.
Octopus takes the roof
Developers default to Octopus Zero Bills, 14 south-facing panels, 10 years of guaranteed bills, no export revenue and no PR credit. There are alternatives that keep the yield and the story. We know them.
The industry's blind spots.
Spark into a ventilated cavity, PV on a green roof that goes incendiary in a dry summer, non-fire-rated roof zones over fire-rated ground floors. The regs haven't caught up with rooftop PV and neither have most specifiers. We have.
Insurers won't underwrite it. Battery fires burn for days. Passive charging point counts don't mean you can put them below the slab. We plan around the compartmentalisation before it forces a redraw of the ground floor.
14 south-facing panels, 10-year bill guarantee, export revenue signed away to Octopus, and a client who can't credit them in marketing. Fine for the developer's cashflow. Worth understanding what you give up before you specify it.
A single house sells its export cleanly. A terrace of eight doesn't, unless you've designed batteries into the plant strategy from the start. This decision belongs at Stage 3, not Stage 5.
A suite of docs your planners can add to the submission without reopening what's already been agreed. We write the PV addendum to fit the DAS you have, not the one you'd have written if you'd known then what you know now.
Export tariffs shape revenue, DNO headroom shapes capacity. East/west and vertical arrays now beat south-facing on many sites. Most UK installers don't model this, we do.
Coloured lamination, full façade cladding, solar slate, the trade-offs on cost, warranty and installer familiarity are wildly different. We walk you through which is right for the brief.
Half the tier-2 module brands specified in 2020 no longer exist. We only spec manufacturers we believe will still be replacing panels in 2045.
A 30 kWp array drifting 8% below expected yield for five years loses more than any capex saving on the panels. Monitoring and O&M are in the spec, not an afterthought.
PV is a material now, not a bolt-on.
A sample of the product lines we're tracking for UK projects.
Fibre-cement roof lap with laminated PV, a fully-integrated Swiss roof system delivered to us direct through Thomas Wedde's Sonnenkraft team. No UK middleman markup.
Seamless photovoltaic façade cladding, the same fibre-cement quality as the roof system, wrapped down the walls. For architects who want power without a visible array.
Custom colours, custom sizes, custom textures. European production, small-batch friendly, R&D team who'll answer specifier questions directly.
Ten stock colours from Gold to Turquoise, 167–212 Wp/m². Swiss-made, warranty that outlives the mortgage.
Textured black slate look, integrates cleanly with heritage roofscapes where a rectangular array is refused.
In-roof mounting cut cleanly around roof windows, the flush-integrated detail Alpine roofers have been detailing for years.
Direct-from-manufacturer coloured modules, 400–720W standard, 475–660W BIPV. For projects that need spec, not a stock SKU.
Solar fence panels for perimeters where roof and land are both spoken for, car parks, industrial estates, security lines.
A high-reflectance membrane under a bifacial array cuts the roof's heat load and lifts the array's economics at the same time, a meaningful yield gain that shows up in the pro-forma, not just the datasheet.
Four ways architects work with us.
Book a 30-minute call. We'll join a design-team meeting, review the massing, and give you a written PV feasibility note you can attach to the design and access statement.
We hold the PV package end-to-end: system design, DNO application, procurement, installation, commissioning, O&M contract. Fixed-price on scope you've agreed.
You've been given a PV spec by another consultant. We'll red-line it, module choice, inverter sizing, string layout, cable routing, warranty risk, before you sign it off to the client.
An informal hour in your studio: current BIPV market, fire and regs, and how to write a PV spec that survives tender. Good in the holiday season, useful all year.
Send us the site, the brief and the client's ambition. We'll tell you in thirty minutes whether the project is a fit for what we do.