UK company wins award

Press release

Solarcentury's integrated solar photovoltaic tile, C21e wins the coveted 'Best Sustainable Product Award' at Ireland's Construct Building Exhibition.

Last week solarcentury won Best Sustainable Product Award for their C21e solarelectric fully integrated roofing tile at Construct, Northern Ireland's major construction show. Following Secretary of State, Peter Hain's recent
announcementof £59 million for the promotion of renewable energy in Northern
Ireland, this product's accolade will provide the construction market with an
opportunity to embrace Northern Ireland's renewables revolution without
compromising the aesthetics of their development.

This latest award builds on a host of accolades for C21e including Best Exterior Product atInterbuild 2004 and Building Magazine's award for Innovation in their2005 sustainability awards.

C21e is the most efficient (21.5%), easy to install and cost effective solar tile on the market. The latest iteration of the C21e tile blends unnoticeably withconventional concrete tiles. solarcentury's advanced C21e design has been developed with aesthetics and efficiency as the primary concern. The cells are all black incolour with electronic contacts positioned behind a black tedlar backing. This completely eliminates solar reflection, maximising energy production within the given tile area, thereby requiring less than 10 square metres of C21e to generate a quarter of an average 3 bedroom homes electricity requirements. The application of these discrete solar photovoltaic tiles provides all the benefits of a 'bolt-on' solar systems, used in eco-home schemes such as BedZED, without affecting the 'rooflines' or appearance of the development.

Major housing developers including St James and Barratts are now testing
this new technology on their show houses as part of their drive to deliver more
sustainable homes.

Policies such as The Merton Rule (see http://www.themertonrule.org/) are encouraging a massive uptake in renewable technology as over 80 councils are in the process of implementing pro-renewable planning guidelines.

The thermal version of solarcentury's C21 tile (C21t) will make it's debut at Interbuild 2006 (April 23-27th 2006) providing a fully integrated 'Complete SolarRoofTM'. The combination of the two tiles (C21e & C21t) will deliver renewably generated heat and electricity to homeowners at a time when rising fuel prices are causing major panic in the energy industry.

The C21 product range 'future proofs' a home against such rises by fixing the prices that householders will pay for fuel over the 50 year lifetime of the product.

Welcome To The Solar Century!

solarcentury are the UK's leading supplier of photovoltaic panels (solar panels that are able to produce electricity). This year named as the 25th fastest growing British technology company by the Sunday Times, they have completed many installations all over the UK both commercial and domestic.


solarcentury are completely independent from the fossil-fuel industry, and their 50+ member team at the time of writing, is headed by CEO Jeremy Leggett who as well as being the author of the book The Carbon War, was an award-winning scientist, oil-industry consultant, and Greenpeace campaigner.

"Jeremy Leggett is one of the half-dozen experts most responsible for putting climate change issues on the international agenda."

Mark Hertsgaard - Washington Post.

Jeremy has recently completed another book which may be of interest to readers - published in November 2005 by Portobello Books, it's called 'Half Gone' : Peak of Oil, Gas and the Global Energy Crisis.

The technology of solar panels has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years, with panels able to be made in many finishes and shapes, from flat to curved, and even plastic and glass laminates an example of which is the glass laminated roof commissioned from solarcentury by Orange for one of their office buildings.

Modern photovoltaic can generate electricity from light regardless of weather conditions, this makes them very suitable for even the UK climate.

Electricity is produced during day light hours, and any unused electricity is either stored for later use (battery or fuel cell for example), or the excess clean power is channeled back to your electricity supplier for which you are paid. An illustration of how a photovoltaic system works can be found on their site, along with many images and explanations of the various installations, materials, and systems that they can supply.

There isn't really much need for me to harp on about the ecological or environmental benefits over conventional electricity production methods; such as oil, coal or nuclear, as this should be immediately obvious. But the benefits to your own pocket in energy costs should be stated, as well as the added value a property aquires with such an installation.