November 19 2004
Manchester’s tallest building, the CIS Tower, is to be clad with solar panels. The Co-operative Insurance Society has commissioned the installation of around 5,000 photovoltaic panels on three sides of the tower, making it Europe’s largest vertical solar cladding project. For the £5.5m job, manufacturer Sharp has developed a bespoke module appropriate for such a large-scale installation. The blue 80W polycrystalline panels have been designed to give a clean look to the tower, which will generate 180,000kWh of electricity per year after completion at the end of 2005.
