Home of the future showcases Polysolar’s innovation

The entire daytime electricity needs of the refurbished British Gas-owned Smart Home development in Watford are expected to be met thanks to an innovative transparent solar PV glass atrium, according to the Cambridge-based company – Polysolar.

Located in the Building Research Establishment (BRE) Innovation Park, the refurbished Smart Home, formerly known at the Integer Millennium House, will officially open today.

Smart Home is expected to generate an average of 3,500kWh of electricity per year directly from the three-storey, building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) glass atrium, saving 1.8 tonnes of CO2. The owner will also be eligible for the Government’s Feed-in Tariff, providing an income/saving yield of over £1,000 per year.

The multi-functional BIPV building material helps the showcase home meet the leading BREEAM certification for sustainable buildings, while demonstrating some of the very latest innovations in design, building intelligence, environmental performance and construction processes.  

Hamish Watson, CEO of Polysolar, commented: “The building and construction industry is at last beginning to wake up to the value of BIPV.  Increasingly, architects, designers and property owners are specifying it as an effective way of including energy micro-generation into the fabric of a building.

“Product availability, upfront costs, improved efficiency, and developments in building regulations provide opportunities for architects and specifiers to take advantage of a truly versatile and innovative multi-purpose 21st Century building material.”

Practical micro-energy generation is made possible in a glass facade due to the product’s unique ability to absorb ambient and reflective light on both sides, almost regardless of UK weather conditions. The glass also works for longer during the day and over the whole year when compared with conventional roof-mounted crystalline silicon PV systems, thereby maximising energy generation during sunlight hours.

Over 5,000 people have visited the BBC-featured Integer Millennium House since its opening in 1998 and many of the technologies have now been adopted into mainstream construction.