Rooftop solar might be a no-brainer for home owners with suitable roof space and a desire to reduce their electricity bills, but the equation gets a little more complex when applied to high density living. For many inner city and suburban apartment dwellers, there is no easy way to install PV panels, and so solar has not been a consideration.
But this is changing. As we have noted on this site before, for those who own or rent existing apartments, shared solar is opening up as an option for tapping into cheaper, cleaner energy. Meanwhile, developers of new apartment complexes are starting to see solar as an integral part of the design.
But how do you build solar into an apartment block?
One model we have seen used is the shared strata model, in which the solar (and possibly battery storage) system are owner-managed by the strata manager, and when an investor rents out an apartment, the tenant pays their (much reduced) electricity bill to the strata, which is used to offset the strata costs.
But Perth-based developers, Psaros, have taken a different approach. For
“The set-up is physically 2kW systems each,” Anthony O’Connell, the CEO of Metro Solar who installed the array, told One Step Off The Grid in an interveiw. “Each (2kW of solar panels) is physically wired down to each apartment.”
The builders were able to do this, and to keep all of the hardware accompanying the 640 solar panels on the apartment complex’s roof, by using advanced microinverter technology from US-based company, Enphase.
Indeed, they are using the same approach on another, even bigger project – another Perth apartment building – using 268kW of solar, which is expected to be finished by the end of the year, according to O’Connell.
“Flo Apartments is living proof of the incredible flexibility afforded by microinverter technology,” said Enphase managing director Asia Pacific, Nathan Dunn. “(They give developers) the ability to have a …system made up of 86 individual systems each allocated to one apartment – a design that is virtually impossible to achieve with a string inverter.
“This kind of flexibility in solar is essential in high density living, which is rapidly increasing in all major cities,” Dunn added in an emailed comment. “Enphase is proud to be making high performance solar and market-leading monitoring accessible to owners of apartments as well as standalone homes.”
And while O’Connell conceded that installing a system in this way was a lengthy and complex process (see video below) – and might not be a realistic option for existing apartment buildings – it was readily achievable on a new-build project, and had several upsides; not least of which being that it offered the future apartment owner, or renter, the same sort of energy independence a rooftop solar home owner might have.
Psaros Flo Solar Panel H264 from Psaros Property Group Pty Ltd on Vimeo.
Using this model, he said,”the solar is consumed depending on each person’s individual energy habits,” and people are encouraged to take an active interest in their energy consumption.
Tenants can do this using the Power Tracker system – a software program that gathers the data from the Enphase inverters and monitors each apartment’s consumption, compared with how much their panels are generating. The software also has a rating system, which allows people to compare how they’re tracking, on balance, with their neighbours.
This encourages a little bit of inter-apartment competition, says O’Connell, and thus encourages efficiency and smart energy use.
Another benefit, he adds, is that “if there was a problem with Unit 2’s system, it would only affect unit 2.”
“Flo is really representative of the future direction of residential developments in Perth,” said Chiara Pacifici, the head of sustainability at Psaros.
“When you consider that more than two million Australian households are already fitted with solar panels, it won’t be long before the installation of renewable energy technology is standard across all new residential developments in WA,” she said.
“There’s overwhelming buyer support for projects incorporating renewable energy technologies, not only because of the cost-saving benefits, but also because people recognise this is the way of the future,” Pacifici said.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
This post was published on July 29, 2015 12:25 am
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Solar for strata properties has been a soap-box issue for me for a while. Obviously it is much easier to do at the developer stage. However, I am in a set of townhouses built in the mid-1970s. Depending on what state you are in, you may or may not own the roof of your townhouse and have
maintenance responsibility for it. In a block of flats the roof is common property no matter where you are.
For good reason, each state's legislation has a high threshold to give over a bit of common property to the exclusive use of one unit owner.
Spending owners corporation money on anything requires a resolution of a general meeting. That can get complex too whether for legislative reasons or internal politics. We tried three times to put a PV system on the roof of a carport on common property. The first time was in 2009 and we thought the motion was passed by a small majority. Then some owners went to extraordinary lengths to prevent it proceeding, including various legal appeals, resulting in a decision to try again and this time try to get a 'special resolution' (majority in favour, fewer than a third opposed, 67% in effect, in the ACT). The 'antis' ran a massive campaign of opposition to this risky venture (as it was possible to characterise it for some in 2009). We did not quite get 2/3.
Then the ACT's Unit Titles (Management) Act was under review with terms of reference including 'What obstacles are there to the installation of sustainability infrastructure in owners corporations?'
s.23 is the main outcome from our submission. If a proposal ticks a set of boxes such as a statement of costs and benefits, details of funding, siting, any easements required and so on, it can be passed with a simple majority vote.
We put the proposal a third time in 2012 and got 85% in favour and went ahead.
In our case all our common property electricity consumption is for lighting of paths and parking areas at night only. We got the last of the 20 year feed-in tariff. By day we put as much electricity into the grid as we take out at night over the year in kWhs and the credit on our account cancels the cost of our consumption and supply charge. So, tonight, as treasurer, I will present a budget to our AGM with zero as the anticipated electricity cost.
This saves every owner some money from their corporation levies. Some owners also have their own private PV system on their own townhouse roof.
I suggest a communally owned PV system is the way to go for blocks of flats with continuous loads all day. Many will have corridor and underground parking areas with lights running all day and lifts that operate all day, fans for ventilation systems and so on. The OC electricity bill must be high and a net tariff if you can get it would be ideal.
If you are not in the ACT and interested in reform of strata legislation, take a look at the ACT Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems inferior to having the body corporate become the power retailer and sharing the power across the tenancies. If each apartment has its own private 2kW system, many of them will get poor utilisation.
I too would have thought this is the least efficient way of setting things up (assuming low feed in tariff). Except that it limits each to their "owned" solar capacity rather than some owners taking the benefit of a larger portion of the array.
However is metering and real time monitoring at the stage where you could get your share of available capacity for free and then above your share at some rate which is higher than the feed in tariff but less than the retail tariff?
That should provide all of the usual incentives.
There could be problems with the owners corporation being the retailer as you suggest. In the ACT, and probably other states, the strata legislation has a prohibition on the conduct of 'business' by an OC. The ACT legislation explicitly says that income from sustainability infrastructure, e.g. a feed-in tariff, will not count as conduct of business if the income is on par with its utility costs. IE, a PV system big enough to approx. match the OC's electricity use or cost would be OK but a much larger system would not be OK. On the other hand the ACT legislation, at least, allows unit owners to enter into agreements for the provision of services with the OC. It might be that having 2KW segments wired directly into each unit is easier for legal reasons.
As I mention above, if the OC can offset its own electricity cost, that would otherwise have to come from levies on owners, then the owners all get a financial benefit so that could work with a singular OC system.
There might also be another reason for the individual connections. Income to the OC is taxable at the corporate rate. Strictly speaking, that 'non-mutual' income has to be declared to the owner, and they each have to declare their portion on their income tax (in most states. It depends on whether in your state legislation, the common property is held in common by owners or in trust for the owners! In the ACT the Act explicitly allows sustainablity equipment to be held in trust for the owner, thereby making the tax considerations much easier - a result of our OC having got a tax ruling.)
Different owners would have different marginal rates so the benefits vary unless you have the 'in trust' arrangement rather than 'in common'. Income that goes direct to the owner, from a direct connection, perhaps recorded as part of their unit/lot area or granted as a special privilege, avoids messy paperwork and on-going work for the executive committee.
The above is not as clear as it could be, sorry. My point is that there are complex interactions between the way in which a financial benefit is derived, the key tax rulings for OCs, the available feed-in tariff arrangements, constraints on the OC's conduct of business, the OC's patterns of electricity consumption compared with the unit/lot owners' and so on.
Having energy independence, like having a measure of autonomy, has always attracted professionals and the wealthy. Perhaps it's like the beginning of TV's, automobiles and refrigerators. Easily accessible energy could become like easily accessible news, transport and food storage.