Massive rooftop solar and battery microgrid sets stunning green benchmark for industry

Australia’s largest interconnected rooftop solar system – and quite probably the largest in the world, to date – is set to be developed in south-western Sydney as part of an embedded network combining 60MW of solar and 150MWh of battery storage that will help power a 100% renewable industrial and warehousing site.

Asia-Pacific logistics outfit Logos announced on Tuesday it had signed up to a 30-year partnership with renewable energy fund, Solar Bay, to install and operate the massive solar and battery system to provide network and retail energy services to tenants of the Moorebank Logistics Park (MLP).

MLP – itself described as Australia’s largest logistics warehousing infrastructure project, with a combined 800,000 square metres of roof space – was bought up last year by Logos and a consortium of partners including AustralianSuper, Ivanhoé Cambridge, TCorp (NSW Treasury Corporation) and AXA IM Alts, for $1.67 billion.

MLP aims to provide critical infrastructure to shore up some of Australia’s biggest retailers against future supply-chain nightmares as have plagued them over the past few years, due to Covid-19, floods and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But crucially – as head of Logos Australia and New Zealand, Darren Searle points out – it also offers a substantial opportunity to the tenants where they seek to run their business operations on a carbon-neutral mandate.

One such tenant, Woolworths, has been working since last year on $1.2 billion plans for a 34,600 square metre automated regional distribution centre and a 44,900 square metre semi-automated national distribution centre at the industrial hub.

According to the deal with Solar Bay, the solar and battery microgrid aims to supply the full energy requirement of the precinct during daylight hours – or 44% of the total site electrical requirement – with remaining power required coming from an unspecified off-site wind farm.

Future stages of the microgrid – the site reportedly has the space to accommodate up to 130MW of rooftop solar and generate 183GWh of electricity per annum – aim to take in solar powered electric truck fast charging, thermal storage, hydrogen generation and supply, and “related low emission infrastructure.”

Logos says the estimated end value of MLP will be $4.2 billion, once the site is fully developed and will be Australia’s largest fully automated port-to-site rail link and world-leading industrial site, facilitating logistics and warehousing for some of Australia’s leading customers.

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