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Hyundai Solar Panels coming to Australia

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Hyundai solar panels will be available in Australia this year after inking a massive deal with a local solar company. The Korean company will look to sell to the commercial and residential sector and will also look to install large-scale solar projects here.

Hyundai Solar Panels in Australia

Hyundai Solar Panels - Green Energy
Hyundai Solar Panels – Green Energy (source: Hyundai)

Hyundai Heavy Industries Green Energy have signed an exclusive deal with Queensland solar distribution company Supply Partners. The deal has been valued at $70 million and will see Hyundai HI return to the Australian market since it exited in 2011. 

Larry Kim, the head of global sales for Hyundai Heavy Industries Green Energy, said the company’s sales targets are ambitious – planning to sell 20-30MW of panels this year, and 40-50MW in 2019. According to RenewEconomy, they were only up to 10MW of panels when they exited the market. It’s important to note that the solar landscape has changed considerably in the last 7 years and that 10MW worth of panels certainly doesn’t represent the ostensible failure the numbers provide in 2018 terms.

Kim said the focus of Hyundai will be squarely on the residential and commercial markets. 

“Nowadays, the Australian market is growing very fast in all markets, but residential and commercial are more stable,” Kim told RE in an interview.

He also discussed their plans with regards to energy storage and how they’re going to roll it out to Australia – given that we already have such a high solar panel installation rate it would seem logical to enter this market as well. 

“This is part of (our) long-term strategy,” he said.

“We are focusing on the Korean market for energy storage systems first,” he said. “After that, (we will look at) the Australia residential market.

“But not in the near future.”

We’ll be super interested to see how Hyundai’s re-entry into the Australian market goes and will be sure to update you as soon as we hear anything more about the move.

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Camberwell Grammar School Solar System

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The 862kW Camberwell Grammar School Solar System has been installed in Canterbury and all 2,607 solar panels are currently generating electricity for the largest solar project on any school in Australia. IT will generate 1GWh (1 million kWh’s) of clean energy every year. 

Camberwell Grammar School Solar System - Gippsland Solar
Camberwell Grammar School Solar System – Gippsland Solar (source: gippslandsolar.com.au)

The Camberwell Grammar School Solar System

The team at Gippsland Solar (comprising of 14 commercial installers who were put up in Melbourne for the duration of the project) set up the school solar system, which includes two ‘off-grid classrooms’, earlier this year. It’s been a technically challenging process that required 3D drone modelling, complicated electrical and structural engineering. The first 550kW was delivered over the Christmas school holidays and the remaining 312kW was completed at the end of term one, so as to minimise the amount of disruption to students.

According to the Gippsland Solar Facebook page, the system will generate just over half of the school’s usage and during the holidays they’ll export any excess power back to the grid.

System Details – Gippsland Solar

  • Solar panels – 2650 x Trina 350W frameless panels
  • Inverters – 34 x Fronius European inverters
  • System capacity – 862kW
  • Power production – Approx 1,000,000 kWh’s per year
  • Carbon savings – Approx 1,200 Tonnes per year
  • The school is now looking into installing a Tesla Powerpack battery to go with the solar system. 

Another huge step forwards for commercial solar as we see projects like this become financially feasible. What’s also great to note is that the project was entirely driven by the school student council, who presented the idea to the Camberwell board. 

If you want to learn more about the Camberwell Grammar School Solar System then click here to read a case study from the Gippsland Solar website or click the video below which shows off this beautiful feat of engineering. Kudos Gippsland Solar! 

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Electrolux Solar & Battery Storage at Dudley Park

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Electrolux solar – the home products giant have applied to ECOSA to build a solar pv + battery storage facility at Dudley Park – their ‘cooking division’. The application, launched by Atul Badgujar on February 12, is for a 2MW solar system on site and a .5MW battery storage system. It adds to the large amount of private solar investment we’ve been seeing recently and will add to existing solar panels that Electrolux have installed.

The Electrolux solar installation

Electrolux Solar Installation at Dudley Park
Electrolux Solar Installation at Dudley Park (source: ECOSA.SA.Gov.Au)

According to the application, 65% of the solar PV generation will be used onsite and 35% will be used to charge the battery and for potential grid export. The plant will be built over multiple buildings in three generating units over 5 stages, adding to an existing 360kW of solar Electrolux have already got installed. 

The .5MW batter will be mainly used for peak shaving (reducing the amount of energy purchased from the utility company during peak demand hours) and reducing the site kVA demand. 

Private Solar Investment in Australia

There’s been a lot of commercial solar investment in Australia over the past 12 months. Earlier this week we reported on the Sydney Markets’ $8.9m, 3MW solar power system.

According to an article we wrote last year based on figures from Warwick Johnston at SunWiz,  Commercial Solar in South Australia also rose 84% in 2017.

“System prices have fallen significantly … since the feed-in tariff-driven boom,” he said. “So people are really taking this up just for the underlying business case rather than trying to rush in to secure some government subsidy, which isn’t needed any more.” 

Some other private investments we’ve seen come up recently include:

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Sydney Markets solar installation turned on.

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The Sydney Markets solar installation at their Flemington location has been turned on – the $8.9m solar system is Australia’s largest private solar rooftop installation and is expected to save the markets millions of dollars in electricity bills. 

Sydney markets solar installation

 

Sydney Markets solar installation
Sydney Markets solar installation (source: Sydney Markets Facebook)

According to Fairfax Media, the panels were installed by Autonomous Energy over a five month period and the 8,600 panels are able to generate more than 3MW – which is about 11% of Sydney Markets’ annual power usage. The markets are the largest food distribution centre in the Southern Hemisphere and turnover around $3b each year, so to see a company this big working on their sustainability is great.  

Brad Latham, the chief executive of Sydney Markets, said after stringent modelling, watching the market and seeing what other private solar investment was doing in Australia, they decided it was the right choice:

We’ve been examining solar panels for around five years, the financial models really stack up now,” Mr Latham told Fairfax Media.

“And with current electricity prices and the efficiency of solar panels it makes sense.”

Latham discussed how the Flemington-based Sydney markets already recycle about 70% of their on-site waste and how the renewable energy fits into their wider plan to make the markets as sustainable as possible:

“It’s part of our strategic plan to be leaders in sustainability. This solar power system will enable us to generate sustainable energy, as well as drastically reduce our carbon footprint,” Mr Latham said.

“In order to extract the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, 676 hectares of trees would be need to be planted each year.”

Chairman of the Sydney Markets, John Pearson, said this was just the beginning and they have big plants to expand the private solar system: 

“Sydney Markets has additional roof capacity to more than triple the generation of this solar system,” Mr Pearson said.

“We may continue to build upon and expand this system to meet our future energy needs.”

Pearson discussed how they think energy storage technology hasn’t quite reached the point where they’re ready to shell out for it, though: 

“We don’t think batteries are quite there yet, they are still a little ways off but it depends on the financial models,” Mr Latham said.

Another step forward for Australian businesses installing solar systems! 

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Super fund ISPT rolls out rooftop solar.

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Superannuation fund property investor ISPT is installing up to 59 rooftop solar properties Australia-wide as part of its $12b portfolio, cutting utility costs by $27 through a range of energy efficiency initiatives. Their National Solar Project is a four-stage initiative which aims to reduce the cost of baseload electricity and improve energy security for ISPT’s clients.

Stage 1 of ISPT Rooftop Solar Rollout

ISPT Rooftop PV Solar Installations (source: http://ispt.net.au)
ISPT Rooftop PV Solar Installations (source: http://ispt.net.au)

Alicia Maynard, ISPT’s GM for sustainability and technical services said on the ISPT website that “We conceived this project in 2016 following a national review of our key property assets in terms of the opportunity to install rooftop solar PV panels,”

According to the Australian Financial Review, stage one will involve the installation of solar panels in 13 buildings for a total of 13,000 square metres of renewable energy generation. ISPT have already finished construction of PV solar rooftop arrays in Perth (at 100 St Georges Terrace), in Canberra (at 18 Marcus Clarke Street and 7 London Circuit) and in Melbourne (at Central West Shopping Centre). 

Some of the upcoming projects will include:

  • 50 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
  • 477 Pitt Street, Sydney (Sydney Central)

“The solar PV rollout is about positioning our portfolio to be at the forefront of the move to clean energy, taking an industry-leading position that will deliver value for our tenants, dividends for our investors and better solutions for our environment,” said chief executive Daryl Browning.

In stage two another 20 properties will have solar installed – with a massive 45,000 square metres of solar panels planned to be installed. These solar initiatives mean that ISPT’s commercial property portfolio has been given a 4.8 star rating by the NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating System) energy efficiency scheme.

Commercial Solar Power in Australia

This is another example of commercial solar gaining traction as a way to diversify portfolios, add value to a property, and reduce exposure to rapidly rising electricity prices. Some examples of recent commercial solar include:

 

 

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