Solar Panels for Student Accommodation

This is exactly why student accommodation works better than most sectors. With all-inclusive rent, the operator carries the meter, so every kilowatt-hour the array displaces lands directly on your P&L rather than a resident's. The first thing we check is what sits behind the landlord supply: in a fully inclusive block that is effectively the whole building, including bedroom loads and showers, which gives the array a very large consumption to compete against. Where rooms are individually metered to residents, only the communal and plant load is yours and the array has to be sized to that smaller figure. We establish which you have from your half-hourly supply data before designing anything.

It reduces them, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not being straight with you. June to September is peak generation and lowest occupancy, so your self-consumption ratio drops in exactly the months output is highest. Three things mitigate it. First, the residual base load never stops - lifts, ventilation, corridor lighting, comms, security and hot water keep-warm all run through the vacation. Second, battery storage soaks up midday surplus and releases it into that base load rather than exporting it at a poor rate. Third, many operators now run summer conference, language school or short-let occupancy, which keeps the block partly loaded. We model the summer months separately rather than smearing an annual average across twelve, because a smeared model will always overstate the return on this asset class.

Probably, and you should budget for it. The permitted development route that removed the 1 MW rooftop cap for commercial buildings in 2023 sits in Class J of the GPDO, and Class J expressly does not apply to a dwellinghouse or a block of flats - so whether it is available at all depends on the planning use class your block was consented under. Many city-centre PBSA consents also remove permitted development rights by condition. If the building is listed, within the curtilage of a listed building, or in a conservation area, the route generally closes regardless. We check the original consent and the use class at survey stage and tell you which route applies before you programme anything.

It will improve the rating, but usually less than fabric or heating measures, and how it is assessed depends on your block. PBSA sits awkwardly in the EPC regime: cluster flats and studios with their own kitchen and bathroom generally attract domestic EPCs, while halls with shared facilities generally attract non-domestic ones, so the standard that actually applies needs checking building by building. On the non-domestic side, the Government confirmed in June 2026 that privately rented buildings over 1,000 square metres must reach EPC B where cost effective by 2031, with the proposed 2027 EPC C milestone dropped. Solar contributes to that, but treat it as one measure within a plan rather than the whole answer.

On a city-centre tower, typically a single-digit to low-teens percentage of the landlord supply, because you have a very large building sitting on a very small roof - much of which is already taken by air handling plant, lift overruns, flues, fall-arrest provision and sometimes an amenity terrace. On a lower-rise campus block, a converted warehouse or mill, or a suburban cluster scheme with a wide flat roof, the proportion rises substantially. Facade-mounted PV is rarely a way round it: student accommodation with a storey 18 metres or more above ground level is within scope of the ban on combustible materials in external walls. We measure the usable roof area and give you the real figure rather than a percentage pulled from a brochure.

For schemes above 100 kW we can arrange fully funded and PPA structures, where a third party funds the installation and you purchase the generated units at an agreed rate below your grid tariff. That suits owners with constrained capex allocations or a fund mandate that makes a capital draw difficult. It is worth noting that leased or hired-out assets are excluded from first-year capital allowances, so the tax treatment differs materially between a funded structure and an owned one - take specialist advice on which is better for your entity before deciding. Where you do own the asset outright, solar is special rate plant, so the routes are the 50% first-year allowance or the Annual Investment Allowance, not full expensing.