Melbourne shopping centre lays claim to world’s biggest array of sonnen batteries

A shopping centre in Melbourne’s inner east is laying claim to the world’s largest array of sonnen batteries, with a total of 15 16kWh units installed to complement an existing solar system at the Burwood Brickworks.

The Fraser Property-built shopping centre claims to use renewable energy, only, for its operations via 1MW of rooftop solar and the 240kWh battery system, backed up by off-site renewable energy puchases.

The battery storage component of the Burwood Brickworks energy system was “just finished” by Natural Solar, according to the company’s CEO, Chris Williams, putting in place the last piece of an “amazing jigsaw puzzle.”

“This shopping centre is the most comprehensive demonstration of all cutting-edge sustainable innovations rolled into one,” said Williams in a statement this week.

Williams said the 15 Sonnen 16kWh batteries would capture and store all of the centre’s excess solar production throughout the day to help power the building in the evening.

In the event of a blackout, the batteries would also provide the shopping centre with dedicated backup circuits, offering greater resilience as part of a disaster management plan, he said.

“We wear our growth mindset on our sleeve, which is why we didn’t stop in April when we achieved the Living Building Challenge® Petal Certification,” said Theo Della Bosco, development director at Frasers Property Australia.

“The inclusion of solar batteries at Burwood Brickworks is a further sign of Fraser Property’s dedication to sustainability – our company is aiming for 80 per cent of all its owned and managed assets to be green-certified by 2024, and for all new projects under development to be certified by 2021.”

Whether this is, as Natural Solar claims, the biggest array of sonnen batteries in the world, is almost impossible to fact check, but it is a fairly safe bet it is the biggest, yet, in Australia.

Tesla, meanwhile, has its own behind-the-meter storage bragging rights, with the installation of 24 Tesla Powerwall battery systems, or 324kWh of storage, at a new-build apartment complex in Schofields, in Greater Western Sydney.

The solar and battery-powered Bottlebrush residential development was officially launched in June after being completed through a partnership between property developer ALAND and power solution provider Energy Trade.

Energy Trade said the building’s PV system would generate solar power – 70MWh a year – to be used directly on-site and stored in the batteries, which are thought to make up the largest Powerwall installation in a residential building in Australia.