The North Melbourne Kangaroos have become the latest AFL team to add solar power to their club headquarters, with the installation of a 200kW rooftop PV system.
The $462,000 project, which was installed by Envirogroup and partly financed by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation was co-funded by the City of Melbourne and the Kangaroos.
According to the City of Melbourne, it can be remotely monitored via its Enphase Energy microinverter system, which allows the City to track individual panel performance, including inverter temperatures and power output, and alert it of any panel failures.
North Melbourne CEO and managing director Carl Dilena said the system – comprising one 100kW array on the Arden St club’s roof and another 100kW on the adjoining North Melbourne Recreation Centre – would cut the club’s grid-supplied energy use by 22 per cent.
“A big thank you must go to the City of Melbourne for helping us make this environmentally-friendly project a reality. We are proud of our successful, ongoing relationship with the City of Melbourne,” he said.
Chair of the City of Melbourne’s environment portfolio, Councillor Arron Wood, said that powering the “iconic building” with renewable energy illustrated the potential for be installed on buildings of all shapes and sizes.
“North Melbourne Football Club is one of the world’s oldest sporting clubs,” he said. “This project is a great example of how an iconic sporting club can work with government to reduce carbon emissions, promote clean energy jobs, and help the environment.
“We are installing 300kW worth of rooftop solar on Council and other community facilities which will mean we’ll pay less to power buildings like pools and gyms which have large energy loads,” Cr Wood said.
Wood said the Kangaroos’ 800-panel system was now one of the largest in the City of Melbourne, which had a total of 855 residential and commercial solar systems installed, producing 4.24MW of energy.
And it is not the only AFL club to tap solar power; the Richmond Tigers – also in Melbourne – installed a 99.7kW rooftop solar system at their Punt Road headquarters and training facility in September 2014.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
