Bifacial solar panels for commercial solar.

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Vicinity Centres, who will provide 31MW of clean energy to 22 shopping centres and their retailers by the end of the year, is trialling bifacial solar panels to see how that will affect their choices for stage 3 of Vicinity’s solar program.

Bifacial solar panels for commercial solar.

According to an article in PV Magazine, the first bifacial panels were installed at Kurralta Central Shopping Centre to get a better yield from their available roof space. Initial tests showed 6-8% to 16-18% increased output (they tried a bunch of different locations and coatings on the roof to maximise output).

“It’s early days,” said Renae Sambrooks, General Manager of Energy and Commercial Management for Vicinity, “but results from Kurralta made us feel confident enough to install bifacials in three more centres.

“Over the next few months results of those trials will help us make decisions around our Stage 3 solar program,” she said in comments quoted in PV Magazine.

We’ve reported fairly comprehensively about Vicinity Centres and solar investment in the past – we’re also taken a look at the Stockland shopping centres and their commercial solar investment.

“As of today,” Sambrooks said, “we’ve produced 2.5MWh of clean energy from 13MW of installed capacity and we’re in the process of constructing the next 18 MW, which will be completed by the end of 2019.”

There are a few other bifacial solar panels available:

An article in Green Tech Media notes that the bifacial PERC modules can boost performance by a staggering 27%.

The Bifacial Solar Panels at Kurralta are one of the first steps Vicinity Centres are making to end up with their 31MW of renewable energy output – Sambrooks discussed the long term goal:

“Our vision was to create intelligent energy destinations. We’re not just whacking solar panels on roofs. It’s a long-term investment and we’re always thinking how we can sweat the solar installations and all our other energy initiatives to make a return.”

Still very early days, so we’ll keep you updated how they go with the testing and what Vicinity decide to do with regards to commercial solar panels.

Solar glass shopping centre – Vicinity Centres/ClearVue.

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Australia’s largest retail landlord, Vicinity Centres, has partnered with innovative solar glass company ClearVue Technology to install transparent solar panels (solar glass) to help their shopping centre’s environmental footprint and potentially save money on energy.

Solar Glass – Vicinity Centres partner with ClearVue

We’ve written about ClearVue Technology quite a few times on this website, from their solar bus shelters to commercial solar windows, the company have been working hard bringing their integrated clear glass solar panel to market in Australia and overseas.

The company have now partnered with Vicinity Centres to install solar glass in its Warwick Grove shopping centre atrium entry. The solar glass atrium has 26 solar cells inbuilt, which generate up to 1MW. It also works as insulation – with materials inside the window deflecting energy to small PV cells at the edge of the screen. This solar window tech is something we’ve been very excited about for a long time so it it’s amazing to watch it enjoying some real world application!

According to ClearVue, this is the first commercial installation of fully transparent solar cell glass in the entire world. The solar atrium will power lighting, outside signage, a digital display screen within the centre, and it’ll send any excess energy to battery storage at night. So it’s a pretty far cry from actually powering the shopping centre, but that’s not really the point right now.

“While other products exist, these are typically optically distorted or coloured, or they are not yet commercially available and are still in the research and pre-commercialisation stages,” a ClearVue spokesman said in quotes to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Solar Glass - Vicinity and ClearVue Technologies (source: clearvuepv.com) — Solar Glass – Vicinity and ClearVue Technologies (source: clearvuepv.com)

The Vicinity Centres general manager for shopping centre management, Justin Mills, was also very excited about the new installation:

“(the solar atrium) reinvents the way we harvest renewable energy, reduces our exposure to the volatile energy market and our carbon footprint – a key focus for Vicinity.

“We’re excited to be trialling such innovative, leading-edge technology and embarking on a global-first in solar energy application.” he continued.

If you’d like to read more about solar power installed at shopping centres, take a look at the Stockland Solar Power Rollout – which will see 12.3MW installed across 10 shopping centres in Australia.

You can also read about Vicinity Centres’ solar project – which is the investment of $28m to install 11.2MW of solar power in five shopping centres.

According to Smallcaps, ClearVue Technologies have also signed a a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Grafsol General Trading for exclusive distribution rights in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.

“This MoU represents a great opportunity for ClearVue to break into the Middle Eastern region,” said Victor Rosenberg, executive chairman of ClearVue Technologies.

We’ll report more about ClearVue in the middle east next week!

Have a great weekend.

Vicinity Centres To Install $75m of shopping centre solar.

Posted on September 4, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Vicinity Centres revealed today that they will spend $75m to install solar at seventeen (instead of five) shopping centres in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, after previously indicating that thy would ‘only’ be spending $28m to roll our commercial solar across five of their shopping centres. This is being touted as ”Australia’s largest-ever property solar program”.

Vicinity Centres and Commercial Solar for Shopping Centres

Vicinity Centres Shopping Centre Solar – Vicinity CEO/MD Grant Kelley and Premier of South Australia Steven Marshall.

We wrote about Vicinity’s initial shopping centre solar plan back in May, when the initial figure was $28m. The scope of what Vicinity are hoping to do have changed drastically over the last few months – and they have decided to throw almost 300% more money at the project and expand it to more states.

Stage 1 will still involve 11MW of commercial solar across five shopping centres and is already underway.

The second stage is expected to be completed by the end of 2019. It involves extending the program to Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland – generating over 31,000MWh of solar energy each year.

“We know our centres have a considerable footprint in our communities which is why we’ve committed more than $75 million towards stage one and stage two of our solar project,” said Vicinity’s head of shopping centre management, Justin Mills, in comments on the project repeated in One Step Off the Grid.

“This investment will generate clean power for our centres for the long term, make a positive environmental impact and deliver shared value for our customers, retailers and investors,” he said.

“As technology advances so does the business case for solar. We anticipate strong investment returns with the project to generate an internal rate of return of approximately 12 per cent, while also reducing our consumption from the national electricity grid by up to 40 per cent.”

Vicinity Solar Project Information and Timeline

The second stage rollout will also create over 300 solar jobs during the construction phase and 40 permanent roles once it’s completed.

Read the original press release by clicking here.

Vicinity Centres to launch $28m Solar Project

Posted on May 2, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Australia based retail asset management company Vicinity Centres have advised that they will spend $28m to install 11.2MW of solar power on top of five shopping centres in two states.

Vicinity Centres shopping centre solar project

Vicinity Centres Solar Project (source: afr.com)

The Vicinity Centres project will involve the installation of 39,000 solar panels across Castle Plaza, Elizabeth City Centre and Kurralta Park in South Australia and Ellenbrook Central and Currambine Central in Western Australia. The panels will be able to generate 17.4 GWh of electricity each year.

Vicinity chief executive Grant Kelley spoke about their reasons for starting up the project:

“The energy generated by the solar and battery systems will be used on site, reducing reliance on the grid and helping give our retailers and our business a buffer from a volatile energy market,” he said.

The Vicinity solar project will also be looking forward in terms of solar panel technology – utilising ‘trial zones’ for double-sided solar panels, cloud tracking technology and even fast charging stations for EVs (electric vehicles).

Shopping centres have seen quite a lot of private solar investment over the past year or so – the Stockland shopping centres have started work on a 12.3MW rollout of rooftop PV solar on their premises. The Stockland solar project is expected to generate around 17.2GWh of energy per annum and cost around $23.5 million to install their 39, 000 panels. Since they use such a massive amount of electricity it makes sense to insulate themselves from the seemingly inexorable electricity price hikes.

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Vicinity Centres

Bifacial solar panels for commercial solar.