Australia Post and Bird Munchies go solar at NSW HQs

Australia Post has installed a rooftop solar system at its New South Wales headquarters as part of its ‘Carbon Reduction Strategy’, which aims to slash the postal service’s energy usage, and its emissions by 25 per cent on 2000 levels by 2020.

The 284kWp system was installed at Australia Post’s StarTrack House, in Sydney’s Strawberry Hills, by Photon Energy using 1,051 Yingli Solar panels. It is forecast to produce 370MWh of electricity a year – enough to cut the building’s electricity costs by over $65,000 a year.

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The 284kWp system on the rooftop of Australia Post HQ at Strawberry Hills, Sydney

With limited roof space available on the building, Photon combined engineering strategies with Yingli’s high efficiency PANDA PV modules, to help maximise energy yields from the system in low light conditions like mornings, evenings or cloudy days.

Australia Post’s head of environmental sustainability, Andrew Sellick, said the company was striving to become a leader in green business by introducing clean energy and efficiency initiatives across its 1,200 facilities.

Also turning to solar to cut energy usage and costs is one of Australia’s leading manufacturers of bird seed products, the NSW-based Bird Munchies.

The company has invested in a 70kW rooftop solar system – installed by SolarMax and project partner Ygrene Energy – that will generate over 105MWh of solar power a year and is expected to save up to $25,000 a year in energy bills and shrink Bird Munchies’ carbon footprint by 104 tonnes a year.

The system, which comprises 230 x 305kW Yingli Solar solar PV panels, is also expected to deliver an internal rate of return (IRR) of 27 per cent per annum.

Tim Davaris, managing director at Ygrene Energy, said Bird Munchies was one of many manufacturing facilities in NSW’s Queanbeyan to install  solar PV to cut costs and reduce reliance on grid electricity.

Comments

6 responses to “Australia Post and Bird Munchies go solar at NSW HQs”

  1. Paul Andrew Avatar
    Paul Andrew

    “The system, which comprises 230 x 305kW Yingli Solar solar PV panels…” – wow I want some of those panels!

    1. John Silvester Avatar
      John Silvester

      A panel that size would be a little unwieldy. At 25% efficiency the panel would be over 1,200m2.

      1. sendai Avatar
        sendai

        They’re standard utility sized panels, which means they’ve 72 cells rather than the usual 60 cells, and are ~1.9m^3 rather than the more usual ~1.6m^3. Slightly unwieldy, but it doesn’t matter once they’re installed.

    2. sendai Avatar
      sendai

      They’re no more efficient than Yingli’s other panels, just bigger. There are higher efficiency panels around, but they’re usually considerable more. Have a look at the LG Mono X NEON, Panasonic HIT, and SunPower panels if you’re interested in them.

  2. Rob G Avatar
    Rob G

    Bravo! Australia Post, the financial gains will be heading your way (any chance of cheaper international postage?)

  3. John P Avatar
    John P

    Homeowners, businesses, and community groups all going renewable! It will be interesting to see if the barbarians can find way to stop that.

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