Wollongong, which sits south of Sydney on the New South Wales coast, has become the latest city to embrace solar carparks. On Tuesday, the Wollongong City Council announced the installation of 549 panels atop its multi-storey Stewart Street carpark was complete.
The system, which peaks at 219.6 kW, is expected to generate about 316 MWh annually – enough to power about a quarter of the council Administration Building’s operational electricity needs. The council’s target is to reach net zero emissions for its operations by 2030.
The solar system is supported by steel frames under which cars can park, an increasingly popular solution for commercial systems in Australia, especially at shopping centres.
“The installation of these panels is a step in the right direction for all of Wollongong by helping reduce emissions and reliance on grid derived power. We hope projects like these inspire our community to consider renewable energy options for their own homes and businesses,” Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery said.
Wollongong Council Administration Building already has a 6 Green Star rating, which is the highest rating from the Green Building Council of Australia. According to Wollongong City Council’s Director of Infrastructure and Works, Andrew Carfield, this is an impressive achievement as it is the oldest building with this rating to join a select group of commercially operated buildings rated at that standard.
More broadly, the Wollongong Council is targeting zero emissions by 2050 for its entire local government area, which has a population of over 200,000. Moreover, the city is home to Bluescope’s Port Kembla steelworks, with industry accounting for the vast majority of the area’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Port Kembla is slated to become one of the state’s first hydrogen hubs, and with Swedish steelmaker SSAB delivering its first “green steel” made from hydrogen just last week, the hub could be a game changer for the area’s transition.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.