A working building that could not close.

Project intro

A working building that could not close

The property is a commercial building in Benidorm, occupied and trading throughout the project, with a flat roof already carrying air conditioning plant.

The brief was to cover as much of the daytime load as the roof sensibly allowed, without interrupting the business for longer than a single agreed window.

Operational context

Demand that follows the sun

Consumption data showed a load concentrated firmly in business hours, with air conditioning lifting the middle of the day through the warmer months.

That profile lines up closely with the generation curve, which made a straightforward self-consumption system the obvious design and put storage well down the list.

Roof and electrical assessment

Less usable roof than the plan suggested

The survey found that existing plant, maintenance walkways and the safety zone around the roof edge removed a substantial part of the surface a roof plan would appear to offer.

On the electrical side there was capacity to work with, but the distribution board had little room left, so the connection point had to be planned rather than assumed.

System design

Sized against the base load

The array was sized so that generation is absorbed by the building under normal trading conditions rather than exported, which meant deliberately not filling every remaining square metre.

Ballasted mounting was selected to suit the flat roof and its covering, keeping penetrations to a minimum and leaving the existing roof warranty intact.

• Array laid out around plant, walkways and the roof edge zone
• Sized on measured daytime consumption, not on maximum roof area
• Mounting chosen to limit roof penetrations
• Connection point planned around the existing distribution board

Installation planning

One window, agreed in advance

Roof work, mounting and cabling were carried out during trading hours without affecting the business, since none of it required the supply to be interrupted.

The connection itself was completed in a single planned interruption outside opening hours, agreed with the building manager and confirmed the week before.

Monitoring

Reporting for whoever is on duty

Monitoring shows generation alongside building consumption, so the two can be read against each other rather than in isolation.

Access was set up for the building manager rather than only for the installer, which is what makes an unexpected change likely to be noticed.

Future EV charging preparation

Prepared, not installed

The business expects to add charge points for staff and visitors, so the electrical design reserves capacity and containment for them now.

Nothing was installed at this stage. What was done is the part that is expensive to add later: the route, the space in the board and the capacity held back for it.

Result

A system matched to how the building runs

The installation supplies a working building whose demand sits in the same hours as its generation, which is the condition under which rooftop solar is most straightforward.

The building manager can see what the system is doing, and the next phase has somewhere to connect to.

• Generation matched to the building's own daytime demand
• Monitoring available to the person responsible for the building
• Capacity and containment reserved for charge points
• Roof penetrations minimised and documented