La Trobe Uni adds solar carport at Albury-Wodonga campus

Victoria’s La Trobe University has added another 100kW to the solar capacity at its regional Albury-Wodonga campus, with the installation of a PV integrated carport.
The new solar system, installed on a Schletter Carport system by Todae Solar, covers 44 central car parking bays located near the University’s Health Sciences building.
The solar carport – the first of a number that the University is proposing to install as part of its Campus Master Plan development – takes its current total installed PV capacity to 345kW, enough to power around one-third of its annual energy consumption.
Head of campus Guin Threlkeld said the university had been looking to put shade in that particular car park, and that adding solar to it made perfect sense.
“It’s always been said we needed something and this is making fantastic used of that space,” she said.
“We now have solar on most of our buildings including the two residences – we’ve got quite a system in place and this is a major piece of that system.
“We’ve also been doing internal work with lighting and other things to reduce our usage of non-renewable energy sources.”
PV integrated carports are becoming an increasingly popular way to bolster solar generation capacity for major organisations like universities, airports, and produce markets.
Recently, South Australia’s Flinders University installed a total of 1.8MW of solar PV across its Bedford Park campus in Adelaide, the bulk of which made up a 4136-panel shaded car park.
The $4.8 million project, which includes 1681 panels across six campus roof-tops, is expected to generate 20 per cent of the University’s electricity needs, and pay itself off – through cheaper bills – within seven years.