Commercial Rooftop Solar for Care for the Family in Newport

Care for the Family is a national charity that works to promote strong family life and to help those who face family difficulties. It has been doing this work since 1988, focusing on marriage, parenting and bereavement, and aims to be accessible to every family whatever their circumstances.

Its support takes several forms, from couple and parenting support to bereavement services for bereaved parents, those widowed young, and people supporting others through loss. Alongside telephone befriending services, the charity runs events and courses and produces resources that are designed to be preventative, evidence-based and easy to apply. Increasingly it reaches families beyond the UK through digital channels as well.

The charity receives no government funding and relies on the support of people who give to its work, so its running costs sit close to its mission. Money spent keeping the lights on is money not spent supporting families, which is the context a large south Wales base with a steady weekday load brings to generating some of its own electricity on site.

The system is a 231 kWp rooftop array built from 350 AIKO panels, split across three roof faces so the building generates through more of the day rather than in a single midday peak. One group faces close to south, with the others facing east and west, spreading output across the morning and afternoon.

The array runs on two SolarEdge inverters with per-panel optimisers, so each panel reports and performs on its own. On a large multi-face roof that matters, since a panel that is shaded or soiled drops only its own output instead of dragging down the string it sits in.

Across a year the array is expected to generate around 247 MWh and to take roughly 47.9 tonnes of carbon off the building's footprint, the equivalent of about 2,200 trees. Much of that electricity is generated during the working week, when the building is in use, so it is there to be used on site as it is made.