Largest GSE In-Roof Array in Cardiff

New Directions was set up in 1994 to help signpost people into employment. The business has grown over the past couple of decades and changed to reflect shifts in recruitment and training, and now operates across eleven UK towns and cities.

The company's aim is to embed itself in the communities it works in, becoming a partner to key markets so it can understand their needs. It has expanded its offer to include training services that help businesses upskill their employees, alongside its recruitment work.

Across the markets it serves, education, social care, domiciliary care and the pharmaceutical sector, New Directions aims to be a supplier of choice.

The discovery came once the scaffolding was up. The roof at New Directions wasn't going to last another five years, let alone the 25-year warranty period of a new solar system. Quotes for a conventional re-roof came back at over £300,000 - before anyone added the cost of the solar install itself.

So we proposed a different approach. A GSE in-roof system doesn't sit on top of a roof - it becomes the roof. 364 Trina panels integrate flush with the roof line, weatherproof the building, and feed four Solis SG-Series commercial inverters wired across a split-array design. One install does the job of two.

At 146 kWp, the system now generates 120,514 kWh of clean electricity every year for New Directions, and the total project cost came in below what the re-roof alone would have been.

They came back for the car park

Two years after the solar went live, New Directions asked us back, this time for the car park at their Cardiff head office. The brief was to add electric vehicle charging for staff and visitors without disrupting the day-to-day running of the site.

We installed three EV charging towers across the car park, each fitted with two chargers, giving six 22kW charge points. The work included replacing the three-phase EV distribution board and running two new radial circuits to feed them. Underground ducting was routed across the car park at the same time, so further charge points can be brought online later without digging it up again.

It is the kind of repeat work we value most: a client who trusted us with their roof in 2024, and came back to us first when the next project came around.