PV Facade InstallationDeeside, Flintshire

Almost every solar conversation starts with the roof. Sometimes the roof says no. It may already be covered in plant and rooflights, it may not have the structural capacity for a conventional array, it may be shaded, or — as is often the case with sports halls — it may simply be the wrong shape and size for the demand of the building underneath it.

This Deeside sports and leisure building had a large, south-facing upper elevation doing nothing but keeping rain out. A photovoltaic facade turned that wall into a generating asset, with the panels forming part of the building envelope rather than being perched above it.

For a sports and leisure building the timing works particularly well. Lighting, heating and ventilation demand peaks in the darker months, which is exactly when a vertical array performs at its best relative to a pitched roof, because low winter sun strikes a vertical surface much more directly.

A photovoltaic facade is building-integrated PV: the panels are mounted vertically as part of the wall, generating electricity while forming part of the building envelope. It is the same underlying technology as a rooftop array, applied to a different plane.

The trade-off is honest. Across a full year a vertical facade in the UK produces less than an optimally pitched south-facing roof, because for much of the summer the sun is high overhead and strikes a wall at a shallow angle. What people miss is the other half of that equation: in winter, when the sun sits low, a vertical surface receives sunlight far more directly than a pitched roof does — and winter is precisely when most buildings consume the most energy.

Facades also shed snow, never pond water, self-clean more readily in rain, and stay cooler than roof arrays, which marginally improves panel efficiency. For buildings with constrained roofs, heavy winter loads or a genuine interest in making sustainability visible, the case is strong.

MARA Electrical install PV facades alongside conventional rooftop, in-roof and solar canopy systems. If the roof is ruled out at your site, there is almost always another surface worth assessing.

This project sits a few miles from our own base in Queensferry on Deeside. We work constantly across this corner of Flintshire — Shotton, Connah's Quay, Garden City, Sealand, Hawarden, Broughton and Deeside Industrial Park — with Chester around eight miles east along the A548 and A494.

Schools, leisure centres, sports halls and public buildings across Flintshire and Cheshire face the same combination: rising energy costs, net zero commitments they have to evidence, and buildings that were never designed with solar in mind. A facade is frequently the option nobody has put in front of them.

We are MCS certified solar installers, NICEIC approved electrical contractors and an OZEV approved EV charger installer, with more than 21MWp of solar delivered since 2010. Browse the full commercial solar portfolio or read about commercial solar panel installation.