Australia’s first urban surf park seeks power from wind and solar

Australia’s first inland surf park, which has this week been completed on seven hectares owned by the Melbourne Airport in Tullamarine, is to be powered by renewable energy.

The massive “MCG-sized” urban surf lagoon, brought to life by local outfit Urbnsurf, uses the technology of Spain-based Wavegarden to produce up to 1000 “ocean-like” waves an hour.

To do this will obviously require no small amount of energy, but founder and executive director of Urbnsurf Andrew Ross has a plan for that.

The Tullamarine surf park already has solar panels installed across the facility’s buildings – including a surf academy, an all-day restaurant and a surf shop – to help minimise their grid power usage.

And for the wave generator, Ross says Urbnsurf is currently on the market to strike a renewable energy power purchase agreement with a suitable provider.

That shouldn’t prove a problem, considering the pipeline of large-scale solar and wind projects being developed in Victoria, and the equally healthy state of the Australian PPA market.

Ross said in an interview this week that the company was tapping renewables to reflect the surf park founders’ and customers’ “deep-green core.”

“We’re not going to be successful unless we remain truthful to those values.”

Happily, it should also make good economic sense for the business, if the current shift to corporate renewable PPAs happening all around Australia – and eating away at the commercial electricity profits of major gen-tailers – is any guide.

Meanwhile, the company is also getting to work on plans to build its second Australian inland surf park in Sydney’s Olympic Park, that will also be renewable powered.