The first project, Alexandra Estate undertaken by the company was completed in 1997, comprising a group of six houses in central Larnaca. All the houses were built using cavity walls, with a 50mm gap. The tiled roofs were built using the “warm deck system”, basically a pitched timber roof with 50mm external thermal installation. All the windows were double glazed. Today these specifications are required by law, however in 1997 thermal insulation was optional for developers – there were no regulations to define the thermal performance of a building.

Recently one of these houses, with a covered area of 200sqm and 4 bedrooms has had a 6KW photovoltaic (PV) panel system added to the roof. The result is house with a “net zero energy” balance – the electrical energy produced from the PV system completely offsets the energy demand of the house. This proves that a 27-year-old house designed using the principles of PSD can be upgraded to an A+ Energy Performance simply by adding PVs.