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Western Australia’s Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre (MARC) is about to get greener and cheaper to run after City of Mandurah councillors voted on Tuesday to install solar panels on the building.
The Mandurah Mail reports a 200kw solar panel system will be installed, which will meet 20% of MARC’s electricity requirements. The system will avoid 243 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually and save City of Mandurah $73,000 a year on electricity costs.
MARC has a huge roof area, able to support between 400 and 500 kilowatts of solar panels.
Rapid Payback
The return on investment and cash-flow position depend on several variable factors over the life of the system, but it’s anticipated the 200kW project will have a payback period of 3.9 years. Net income of the system at end of life, including annual value of certificates, is an estimated $1,678,825.
According to the Agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, phases one to four of Council’s Solar Plan has resulted in a total of 373 kW of installed solar capacity across 11 buildings, ranging in size from 3kW to 100kW – so the MARC project will be the biggest to date.
Combined, the eleven existing installations generate 318 megawatt-hours of electricity, avoid 242 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (corporate share) and are saving an estimated $82,115 in corporate electricity costs annually.
Two of the eleven installation have been completed on buildings leased by Council to community groups and have to date resulted in a combined reduction of 303 tonnes of CO2 equivalent and an estimated electricity cost saving of $117,630 for the groups.
The MARC project represents the fifth phase of Council’s Solar Plan.
“The fifth phase of the Solar Plan will efficiently contribute to meet the City’s 2020 Carbon Neutral targets and demonstrate the City’s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint by driving and sustaining action on climate change,” stated City of Mandurah officer Karin Wittwer.
Mandurah’s postcode (6210) is one of Australia’s top locations for small scale (< 100kW) solar power systems. In May, we reported it ranked number 2 in Australia; with 10,367 systems installed representing a total capacity of 27,201 kW.
According to the latest information from Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator, those numbers have increased to 10,707 systems installed and 28,957 kW collective capacity as at August 1.
The City of Mandurah is located approximately 75 kilometres south of Perth‘s CBD.
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As the above article includes
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Mandurah’s postcode (6210) is one of Australia’s top locations for small scale (< 100kW) solar power systems. In May, we reported it ranked number 2 in Australia; with 10,367 systems installed representing a total capacity of 27,201 kW.
According to the latest information from Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator, those numbers have increased to 10,707 systems installed and 28,957 kW collective capacity as at August 1.
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and I have just tried, unsuccessfully, to post the following, to the article published at
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/top-solar-postcodes-mb0051/;
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Hello.
1. Would it be possible for the rankings to be published monthly, so as to be kept updated?
2. Would it be possible for the rankings to be done on a per capita basis, or, per household basis, so as to show the rankings on the basis of proportions of people, or, households, per locality, that have systems installed, and, the average kW capacity per person or household, now that the latest census results are available?
Thank you in anticipation.
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I am wondering whether these proposals could be implemented.
Thank you in anticipation.