Australia’s largest intermodal freight and logistics facility will soon be powered by what is said to be the country’s largest rooftop solar micro-grid.
Australia’s largest logistics and warehouse facility will be powered by a new solar micro-grid. Source: xstock/Shutterstock.com
Solar Bay will install and operate a microgrid at Moorebank Logistics Park (MLP) in Sydney, Australia. The solar micro-grid will include a 60 MW rooftop solar panel, a 150 MWh battery energy storage system and off-site renewable energy sources. It will operate at both 11 kV and 33 kV to meet the different needs of MLP tenants.
The microgrid is expected to avoid nearly 67.2 kilotonnes of carbon emissions each year.
MLP’s microgrid will fully power the facility
The entire facility will be powered by 100% renewable energy, according to the LOGOS Consortium, owner of MLP. The micro-grid solar array will fully meet the energy needs of the facility’s tenants during the day, and an off-site wind farm and other renewable electricity sources will be used when solar power is not available. .
James Doyle, Chief Investment Officer of Solar Bay, said “the microgrid facilitates the on-site installation of large-scale solar and battery power, providing tenants with the ability to access large amounts of electricity. renewable that corresponds the scale of their electrified operations.
Darren Searle, head of LOGOS Australia and New Zealand, said the microgrid “offers a substantial opportunity for MLP tenants, where they seek to run their own business operations with a carbon-neutral mandate.” It will also enable the consortium to offer long-term electricity supply contracts to its tenants.
A future extension is planned
LOGOS and Solar Bay have agreed to a 30-year partnership on the MLP installation. MLP’s new clean energy infrastructure will help ensure that LOGOS operations operate at net zero emissions by 2040.
The site has the capacity to add an additional 70 MW of solar power, meaning the system could generate up to 183 GW of electricity per year, making it not only the largest infrastructure project in freight and logistics warehousing in Australia, as well as the largest rooftop solar installation in the country, according to a company statement.
Future expansion will power fast-charging stations for electric trucks, thermal storage, hydrogen production and supply, and other low-emissions infrastructure.
MLP micro-grid to support the wider community in times of need
The microgrid will also be connected to Australia’s National Energy Market (NEM) and support the NEM when needed through demand response and the auxiliary market.
Searle said, “The impacts of the infrastructure we will develop with Solar Bay at MLP will extend well beyond the site itself and will play a key role in national, regional and local economies given the size, of the scale and influence of our market leader. to place.”
The MLP microgrid is just one of many new projects announced in Australia this year. Development of micro-grids in queensland and Western Australia also made the news.
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