Australia will see the very first solar retail program come to fruition in north Queensland’s very sunny town of Cairns. Curtis Pitt (Queensland Minister for Trade and Investment) made the fresh announcement on top of the Stockland Cairns Shopping Centre to the public about the exciting new 1.6MW power plant that will be made up of 5,200 panels each weighing 23 kgs. This will be the first of 10 projects that are all about to be rolled out across the country.
Stocklands new announcement has Mr Pitt encouraging the new development saying it is definitely a positive shift in the right direction towards our renewable energy focus.
“Five centres in regional Queensland will see solar panels rolled out across their rooftops adding to the mix of residential and large-scale commercial and industrial solar projects supplying clean and renewable energy,” Mr Pitt said.
“Queensland currently has the highest installed capacity of rooftop solar panels in Australia and one of the highest penetration rates of anywhere in the world. So it makes sense to have a big part of this project here in the Sunshine State, particularly in Cairns.”
Queensland Minister for Energy Mark Bailey said this was further evidence that the Sunshine State was turning into the Solar State.
“We’re well on our way to meeting our target for one million Queensland rooftops with solar or 3,000 megawatts of total solar by 2020,” Mr Bailey said.
The Stockland Cairns Shopping Centre installation forms part of a broader $23.5 million national investment in solar by Stockland. It will install more than 39,000 solar PV panels across ten retail centres.
Combined, the national project is expected to produce 17.2 GWh of energy every year.
Shopping centres across Australia adopt solar energy
The Cairns project is part of a push by Queensland shopping centres to install solar panels.
The Pines, Elanora is a major shopping complex situated in Elanora on Queensland’s Gold Coast. The complex features three major supermarkets and more than 80 stores.
In partnership with Energy Matters, The Pines installed Australia’s largest single solar car park structure. It’s more than triple the size of the next largest rooftop car park solar plant in Australia.
The huge PV array consists of 2,051 x 310-Watt solar panels with a combined capacity of 636kWp.
For more information about switching to solar in Cairns, contact Solar Dimension for expert advise.
