The Nottingham office of Eversheds has advised a leading energy solutions company on a pioneering contract with a major housing association, for the retrofit of up to 2,000 PV panels on social housing in the South West.

Acting for Anesco Southwest, the team at Eversheds in Nottingham advised on the deal with Westcountry Housing Association. Anesco is a national company which helps homeowners, local authorities and businesses achieve carbon reduction and energy efficiency measures. 

The agreement is the first "rent a roof" deal of its kind to be entered into by a registered provider with a third party with the consent of existing mortgagees to the social housing stock. The 'rent a roof' initiative is where a company such as Anesco, rents roof space from a landlord, in order to host solar panels. 

As well as making substantial savings, the housing group will also benefit from the Government's Feed in Tariffs, which means that for any energy generated and then fed back in to the national grid, payments will be made to the landlord. 

The deal is great news for Anesco and for Westcountry Housing, as it comes on the back of the government's announcement last week that it intends to halve the subsidy for solar power from 12 December this year, putting thousands of jobs at risk across the UK. 

The Eversheds team was led by partner Brendan Walsh assisted by partners Rob McNabb, Mark Wood, Stephen Hill, Mitch Brown and David Jervis.

Brendan says: "This pioneering deal represents a very difficult balancing act between the requirements of the banks as lenders to the housing association and the requirements of funders seeking to invest in the sector and to achieve greater security. The rug has effectively been pulled from under the feet of both social landlords and solar providers due to the speed of the tariff review which effectively prevents these complex deals moving forward. It is a testament to the dedication of all involved that this deal has completed."

The deal took almost a year to resolve due to the lengthy procurement process and complex arrangements which needed to be resolved with the housing association's lenders to ensure that its valuations were not adversely affected.  

Adrian Pike, CEO at Anesco adds: "This is a ground breaking deal which will enable hundreds of lower income tenants in Devon to dramatically reduce their fuel bills. As our legal adviser, Eversheds provided a strategic and timely service in enabling this complex deal to complete against the backdrop of the recent government announcement to cut feed in tariffs by 12 December 2011."