Solar Panels for Supported Accommodation

The phrase "supported accommodation" puts the emphasis where the solar engineering actually sits — on the building stock. A learning-disability or mental-health provider does not run a single large building; it manages a dispersed portfolio of ordinary houses, bungalows and small HMOs, frequently leased from a registered provider or a private landlord and let to tenants on assured shorthold or assured tenancies. Each home behaves, electrically, like a domestic property: a single-phase 100A supply, a consumer unit in the hall cupboard, a 25-40 sqm pitched roof.

That is a fundamentally different proposition from the commercial three-phase supply on a 50-bed home drawing 27p/kWh on a half-hourly meter. Here you are designing dozens of small systems to a repeatable template, not one large bespoke array. The win is standardisation: a provider with 40 supported-accommodation properties across Dudley, Sandwell and Wolverhampton can adopt one approved 8-panel specification and roll it out home by home, rather than commissioning 40 separate feasibility studies. We hold the survey data, the per-property generation model and the rollout schedule centrally so the provider's property team manages one programme, not forty projects.

Most supported-accommodation homes sit comfortably within G98, the Energy Networks Association standard for connecting micro-generation up to 3.68kW per phase (16A) to a single-phase supply. Unlike the larger commercial systems that need a full G99 application, G98 is a notification regime: the installer fits the system, then tells the DNO within 28 days. There is no 4-to-12-week pre-approval queue.

For a portfolio rollout this is decisive. A typical 6-to-10-panel domestic system (2.4-4.0kWp) on a supported-accommodation home falls under the 3.68kW G98 ceiling, so a provider can schedule 40 installs back-to-back without waiting on the DNO for each. Where a south-facing roof justifies a slightly larger array, we either cap inverter output at 3.68kW to stay within G98, or — for the occasional three-phase property — submit a fast-track G99 notification. The relevant DNO depends on geography: National Grid Electricity Distribution covers the West Midlands (Stourbridge, Wombourne, the Black Country), with UK Power Networks, Northern Powergrid, Electricity North West, SP Energy Networks and SSEN covering the rest of the country. We map the portfolio against DNO regions before scheduling so notifications are batched correctly.

In supported accommodation the electricity bill usually belongs to the tenant, not the provider. Adults living in these homes hold their own tenancy and pay their own utilities, often on a prepayment meter and frequently on a low or fixed income. That single fact reshapes the value case. Solar does not improve the provider's energy P&L — it cuts the bills of the most financially vulnerable people in the housing system.

This is a genuine outcome, not a marketing line. Lower, more predictable electricity costs support tenancy sustainment: fewer arrears, less debt-driven crisis, fewer breakdowns in placement. For a Local Authority commissioner or a registered provider, a portfolio that reduces tenant fuel poverty is a reportable social-value result. The split-incentive problem — landlord pays for the panels, tenant gets the saving — is the classic barrier, and it is exactly why funding structure matters more here than anywhere else in the sector. Where the provider owns or head-leases the stock, capital purchase with AIA relief or a per-property finance line works; where stock is RP-owned sheltered or extra-care, SHDF Wave 2.2 match funding (50%, Round 2 expected Q4 2026) can cover fabric plus on-site renewables.

Supported accommodation is somebody's home, and the people living there may lack capacity to consent to works, may find unfamiliar visitors distressing, or may be subject to a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) authorisation. Generic commercial solar contractors are not set up for this. Every engineer we send into a supported-accommodation property holds an Enhanced DBS check with the Children's and Adults' Barred Lists, carries photo ID, and is briefed on the specific home's protocols before arrival.

Our site teams work to Mental Capacity Act and DoLS awareness: best-interests decisions on access sit with the provider and, where relevant, the tenant's support team — we follow the home's lead on timing, on which rooms can be accessed, and on whether residents should be off-site during scaffolding and roof works. We use low-disruption methods (rapid scaffold or, where roof pitch allows, a MEWP), avoid loud cutting near bedrooms during rest periods, and schedule around medication rounds, day-service transport and known triggers for individual tenants. For autism-friendly homes we provide a plain-language, advance-notice visit plan the support team can use to prepare residents. The outcome we hold ourselves to: zero distressing incidents across a portfolio rollout.

The national LD and mental-health supported-accommodation providers — Voyage Care, Dimensions, Hft, Choice Support and the dozens of regional operators beneath them — manage stock at portfolio scale, and that is where solar economics get interesting. A single domestic install at £4,000-£9,000 has a modest absolute saving. Forty of them, procured as one standardised programme, change the maths entirely.

Rollout savings come from three places. Procurement: one approved specification, panels and inverters bought in volume, one mobilisation. Survey efficiency: we cluster homes geographically and survey a town's worth in a day. Programme management: a single rollout schedule and one consolidated handover pack, rather than forty disconnected projects. We give the provider a per-property unit cost, a generation forecast per home, and a phased deployment calendar tied to void periods — the cheapest, least disruptive time to install is when a property sits empty between tenancies. The table below shows indicative portfolio scale; figures are per-property and assume standardised G98 domestic systems.

Most supported accommodation is funded through Local Authority commissioning — the LA pays a weekly fee for a placement, and increasingly attaches social-value and net-zero expectations to the contracts it lets. Many councils now score tenders against the Social Value Act and their own carbon-neutral targets (the West Midlands Combined Authority targets net zero by 2041; Birmingham, Dudley and Wolverhampton councils each hold their own dates). A provider that can demonstrate solar across its housing stock has a concrete, evidenced answer to the social-value and decarbonisation questions in a tender.

That can translate into a commissioning premium or, at minimum, a competitive edge at re-tender. We provide providers with a portfolio-level evidence pack: total installed capacity, annual generation, CO₂ avoided, and the tenant fuel-poverty impact — the exact metrics commissioners ask for. Combined with the 100% business rates exemption on solar PV running to 31 March 2035 and AIA tax relief on owned stock, the case stacks both financially and reputationally. For providers weighing capex against zero-capital routes, our PPA option and full cost breakdown set out the trade-offs by ownership type.

We do this work nationally, but the West Midlands is a dense supported-accommodation region and a natural fit for portfolio rollout. Stourbridge (DY8/DY9) and Wombourne (WV5), on the Dudley and South Staffordshire fringe, sit within a cluster of LD and mental-health housing run by regional providers and the larger national operators. The housing stock is predominantly post-war semis and bungalows with simple, accessible pitched roofs — close to ideal for a standardised domestic solar specification.

The DNO across this patch is National Grid Electricity Distribution (West Midlands), the licence area for G98 notifications and any G99 fast-tracks. Most Black Country supported-accommodation properties sit comfortably in permitted development under Class A, Part 14 of the GPDO 2015, so no planning application is needed unless the property is listed (around 8% of national stock) or in a conservation area — both of which we flag at survey. We cluster surveys by town to keep mobilisation costs down: a day in Stourbridge, a day across Wombourne and Kingswinford, batching the DNO notifications by area. Whether your portfolio is concentrated in the Black Country or spread nationwide, the rollout model is the same — one specification, one schedule, one evidence pack.