Southampton Science Park

Solving Southampton Science Park’s complex problem

Our Client

University of Southampton Science Park is South England’s innovation hub, spread across 72 acres, offering a wide range of commercial offices, meeting and conferencing facilities and laboratories. The science park is closely linked to the University of Southampton - a global top 100 university and founder member of the Russell Group.

The Challenge

As a location for a variety of businesses, including offices, meeting spaces and laboratories, each having unique requirements, decarbonisation of property is particularly challenging. The variety of demand and generation potential requires careful planning to ensure enough power is generated at the right time, with many leases and occupants to consider.

The Solution

With the help of LIDAR technology and satellite imagery we surveyed all the buildings with a solar irradiance map predicting solar radiation at 30-minute intervals. An analysis of each property was then carried out using AI-powered computer vision tools to identify areas suitable for solar panel installation. Finally, our market-based intelligence was used to provide capex requirements for each site identified and to create a full financial feasibility analysis for each site, including discounted cash-flows. This was amalgamated into an easy-to-read report for the board to review and develop decarbonisation plans.

The board opted to proceed with our Solar Managed Services offering where we obtained and reviewed quotes and assisted with the decision-making process.

The Results

Our cutting edge and intelligent technology identified buildings that were great for solar panel installation, predicting electricity production, grid import and export, financial and carbon savings together with capex requirements. This allowed the board to make data-led decisions and subsequently instruct Absolar to begin installation of the most suitable building, a 200kW+ installation for a multi-tenanted building.