The Hub helped the university access free, independent technical advice and feasibility work.
University of Reading’s Head of Decarbonisation says, “I quickly realised there was really valuable support from the Hub, and their Assessment of Solar PV Report helped us to progress the project to sign off in faster time frames we would have managed on our own.”
The university now has a clear, data‑driven plan to implement around 1.8 MWp of solar PV across 12 buildings and two car parks, starting this summer with completion expected during 2027.
The university had a list of buildings and car parks from its large estate to include in an initial feasibility study on its Whiteknights campus.
The Hub helped the university shortlist the buildings based on criteria such as building condition, expected lifetime and strategic importance in the estate plan. It then collected and analysed half‑hourly electricity data for each site, using specialist 3D solar design tools to model the maximum viable PV capacity on each structure.
The team modelled performance both at the individual building level and at a network level, carried out financial analysis and cost saving projections. The feasibility work suggested that approximately 1.8 MWp of solar PV could be installed across the 14 sites with an estimated simple payback of well under 11 years.
The Hub’s Energy Project Manager, Qasim Akhtar, says “Collaborating with the University of Reading team to refine their ideas, consider different approaches, and unlock projects was both engaging and rewarding. Seeing the projects progress is particularly rewarding, and providing targeted advice from the outset has been highly fulfilling.”
The university has now identified four or five priority projects, secured internal funding, and is anticipating finishing the build within the next three months. The University of Reading’s team said: “When we found a capital funding opportunity, we were able to move fast because the Hub had prepared such a thorough report for us, making board conversations and approval an easier ask”.
The Hub enabled the university to move from ambition to a concrete set of options without upfront consultancy costs. It’s freed up limited budget to focus on delivery rather than scoping.
The project is one of the Hub’s most detailed campus‑scale PV studies to date, and the first time a specific design tool has been used across 14 separate sites in this way. The result is a replicable methodology that can be used by other universities or large estates.
The project has shown how crucial early, impartial technical support can be for organisations with ambitious decarbonisation goals but limited budgets. Other key lessons include the importance of using incremental data, not just headline consumption, to understand energy use and considering estate strategy and building lifetimes when choosing suitable sites.
The university hopes to deliver its first five schemes within a realistic timescale. The University of Reading’s team said: “All the way through the project the Hub has been really clear on time scales, and adapted when things needed changing – giving us a clear line of sight of how to efficiently move towards our goals.”
Get in touch with the Greater South East Net Zero hub for support.
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