First Energy wins two national awards for solar roof at People’s Bank head office

First Energy SL (Pvt) Ltd has won two awards at the Sri Lanka Clean Energy Week Leadership Awards 2026 for a building-integrated solar installation at the new People’s Bank head office in Colombo. The awards were presented on 21 August 2026 at Hotel Marino, Colombo, during Sri Lanka Clean Energy Week, an industry event organised by SolarQuarter.

The company received Project of the Year: Building-Integrated Solar (BIPV) and Technology Innovation of the Year: Building-Integrated Solar (BIPV). Both awards were made for the same project.

The installation sits at the top of the bank’s 24-storey head office, where solar modules form a waterproof architectural roof over a terrace more than 75 metres above street level. First Energy says it is the first system of its nature in Sri Lanka.

Conventional rooftop solar is mounted onto a finished building. In a building-integrated system the modules are the building element itself. Here the array takes the place of what would otherwise have been a solid pergola roof, and has to keep rain out as well as generate electricity.

The architectural design called for a pergola with a set spacing and a particular quality of filtered light on the terrace below. Standard solar modules are made in fixed sizes with minimum light passthrough, and none suited the design. The modules were therefore fully custom-made to the architectural requirements, featuring both custom dimensions and a reduced cell density, allowing part of the daylight to pass through to the terrace.

The company says it worked with specialist international manufacturers to produce the modules in non-standard dimensions not carried by mainstream suppliers. To withstand high-velocity wind loads at that height, the module thickness was increased, and the mounting system was reinforced with additional clamps and an upgraded support structure to ensure complete stability.

The completed roof features an installed peak capacity of over 80 kilowatts (kWp). It also sheds rain and provides the shade and filtered light the architects specified: three functions from one element, which the company describes as the reason both juries recognised the same project.

Building-integrated photovoltaics are still uncommon in Sri Lanka, where most commercial solar goes onto existing roofs. The approach is generally viable only at design stage, because it earns its cost by replacing a material that would have been bought anyway.

First Energy is one of Sri Lanka’s leading solar companies. It says it has delivered over 100 MW of rooftop and ground-mounted solar in the country, with over 75% of its installed capacity coming from commercial, industrial and utility-scale projects. The company has held ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 accreditation continuously since 2023, holds a CIDA EM 2 grading, and has been registered with the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority as a solar company for 10 years.

Founded in 2016, First Energy provides end-to-end engineering, procurement, construction (EPC), and long-term operations and maintenance (O&M), expanding into battery energy storage systems (BESS) and medium-voltage infrastructure

The system was installed shortly before Cyclone Ditwah struck Sri Lanka in late November 2025, and is complete and operating. The awards arrive in First Energy’s tenth year and reflect the three words the company has worked to for most of that decade: Performance, Quality, Care.