Lightweight solar solutions provider Solivus has partnered with green energy marketplace UrbanChain on a UK commercial solar offering.
Solivus’ lightweight PV technology will now compatible with UrbanChain’s digital energy trading platform, which allows businesses to trade and share solar energy generated on their sites with other local businesses or supply chain partners. Solivus claims that pairing its PV solutions with the trading platform will allow large UK property owners to “retain more value” from their rooftop generation, “reduce costs” and create a “self-sustaining energy ecosystem”.
UrbanChain CEO Somayeh Taheri called the partnership a “transformational unlock” that turns “underutilised rooftops into powerful revenue-generating energy hubs”. Taheri added: “By scaling solar beyond single-site solutions, we’re enabling large property owners to take control of their energy future, reduce reliance on volatile energy markets, and drive decarbonisation at scale”.
Solivus CEO Jo Parker-Swift said the partnership “Creates a significant opportunity, not just in terms of profitability and carbon reductions but the wider energy transition.”
Solivus specialises in lightweight solar PV modules, which can be installed on buildings which may not be able to support the weight of traditional solar modules. In November of last year, the firm completed a £2 million solar PV installation on the roof of Farnborough Airport in Hampshire. Around 4,000 lightweight solar modules, with a combined generation capacity of 1,700kWp, were installed across two aeroplane hangars, the airport terminal, the control tower, and the airport’s Aviator Hampshire hotel. The installation will provide up to 25% of the airport’s annual electricity needs.
Ways to share power from domestic solar PV are also being explored by other firms. Last week, energy supplier E.ON UK announced that it has signed a strategic investment agreement with Australian firm Allume Energy to bring the latter’s SolShare technology, which allows solar energy from a single rooftop solar PV installation to be fairly shared amongst multiple homes in the same building, to more buildings in the UK.
