Earlier this year, One Step reported on the completion of 245kW solar carpark at a Barossa Valley winery owned by Pernod Ricard Winemakers, that had rounded off the French company’s journey to 100% renewables for its Australian operations.
The solar shade staff parking facility – complete with electric vehicle charging points – was installed by AGL Energy as part of what the gen-tailer then claimed was “Australia’s largest” combined winery solar installation, totalling 3MW.
(The first 1MW stage of the installation was switched on at Rowland Flat in late 2018, the same year that Pernod Ricard became the first wine company in South Australia to sign a renewable power purchase agreement.)
This week, that same solar car park has been short-listed as a finalist in the Clean Energy Council’s 2020 Solar Design and Installation Awards in the over 240kW category. And to celebrate, AGL’s head of delivery operations, Brendan Weinert, shared a nice timelapse video of the project being built.
As a welcome a good news story, and a soothing video to watch in troubled times, we thought we’d share it with our readers, too.
The other finalists in the 240kw-plus category include Smart Commercial Solar, for a 1.5MW rooftop solar system on a warehouse in New South Wales that used a helicopter to lift materials for the installation onto the roof; and Epho for a 1.7MW rooftop solar installation using Epho’s Bright Thinkers Power Station technology, which allows the energy generated by the system to be consumed on site or traded on the National Electricity Market, as One Step reported here.
In the 30-240kW category for the CEC Awards, the finalists include Gem Energy for a 56kW/138kWh off-grid solar and battery storage system on a number of eco-cabins in the Brisbane/Gold Coast hinterland; Solgen Energy for a 99kW installation in the shape of the Woolworths logo on the roof of the Woolworths store in Orange, NSW, and; Autonomous Energy for a ground-mounted solar system on a building in the Sydney CBD that allows for plant growth throughout and underneath the panels.
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.
