A new solar energy project at Club Mulwala in the Riverina region of New South Wales will mean lower electricity bills for the club and cooler customers.
Mulwala is situated just over the NSW/Victoria border and is next to Lake Mulwala, a man-made reservoir covering 43,900 hectares.
The Border Mail reports Club Mulwala’s Chief Executive has announced plans for a $750,000 solar car park project that will generate 430 megawatt-hours of electricity a year and provide shade for customer vehicles.
“Our power bill was ridiculously high,” said CEO Alan Rowe. “We were wondering how to get costs down and came up with the idea of a significant solar project in the car park.”
The first stage of the project (215kW) will cover 120 car spaces and will be completed by the end of June.
Further details of the project are expected to be released today.
This isn’t the first time Club Mulwala has dabbled in solar. Back in 2012, it had an 80kW system installed on the main building’s rooftop consisting of 320 x 250W solar panels and four 20kW solar inverters; a large commercial solar system for its time.
Other significant systems in the Mulwala area include a 100kW system at the Mulwala Water Filtration Plant and a 50kW installation at Mulwala Waste Water Treatment Plant.
In terms of small-scale solar power systems, Mulwala’s postcode (2647) is home to 333 installations with a collective capacity of 1.73MW.
Big Solar Proposed For Mulwala
In December last year we reported Esco Pacific had proposed a 140MW solar farm that may include battery storage for a site approximately 2 kilometres north of the township. Mulwala Solar Farm would consist of up to 400,000 ground-mounted solar panels on tracking systems.
Other Solar Car Parks In Australia
Last year, what was at the time Australia’s largest car park solar canopy project (and appears to still be) was completed at Westfield Marion in Adelaide’s south-west. The 647kW system is expected to generate 950MWh of electricity annually.
The Westfield Marion installation is just a tad larger than that at The Pines Elanora in Queensland, which is 636 kW.
Other Australian projects include a 325kW solar car park at Alice Springs Airport, a 900-panel installation at a shopping centre in Northam in Western Australia and a 170kW system at Sydney Markets in Flemington.
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